Perhaps this is obstinacy, or the love of contradiction. No wonder. Do I hear of anything, but soldiers from morning till night? At visits or dinner parties can I speak to a soul--and 'tisn't much I do speak to anybody--but that _she_--I use the pronoun advisedly--is sure to bring in with her second sentence something about "the camp?" I'm sick of the camp. Would that my sisters were! For Lisabel, young and handsome, there is some excuse, but Penelope--she ought to know better. Papa is determined to go with us to the Grantons' ball to-night. I wish there were no necessity for it; and have suggested as strongly as I could that we should stay at home. But what of that? Nobody minds me. Nobody ever did that I ever remember. So poor papa is to be dragged out from his cosy arm-chair, jogged and tumbled across these wintry moors, and stuck up solemn in a corner of the drawing-room--being kept carefully out of the card-room because he happens to be a clergyman. And all the while he will wear his politest and most immovable of smiles, just as if he liked it. Oh, why cannot people say what they mean and do as they wish! Why must they hold themselves tied and bound with horrible chains of etiquette even at the age of seventy! Why cannot he say, "Girls"--no, of course he would say "young ladies"--"I had far rather stay at home--go you and enjoy yourselves;" or better still, "go, two of you--but I want Dora." No, he never will say that. He never did want any of us much; me less than any. I am neither eldest nor youngest, neither Miss Johnston nor Miss Lisabel--only Miss Dora--Theodora--"the gift of God," as my little bit of Greek taught me. A gift--what for, and to whom? I declare, since I was a baby, since I was a little solitary ugly child, wondering if ever I had a mother like other children, since even I have been a woman grown, I never have been able to find out. Well, I suppose it is no use to try to alter things. Papa will go his own way, and the girls theirs. They think the grand climax of existence is "society;" he thinks the same--at least for young women, properly introduced, escorted and protected there. So, as the three Misses Johnston--sweet fluttering doves!--have no other chaperon, or protector, he makes a martyr of himself on the shrine of paternal duty, _alias_ respectability, and goes. ***** The girls here called me down to admire them. Yes, they looked extremely well:--Lisabel, majestic, slow and fair; I doubt if anything in this world would disturb the equanimity of her sleepy blue eyes and soft-tempered mouth--a large, mild, beautiful animal, like a white Brahmin cow. Very much admired is our Lisabel, and no wonder. That white barége will kill half the officers in the camp. She was going to put on her pink one, but I suggested how ill pink would look against scarlet; and so, after a series of titters, Miss Lisa took my advice. She is evidently bent upon looking her best to-night.