Many and varied have been the things I have taken up with an ardour that, bred in the bone, persists in coming out in the flesh--tennis, bicycling, amateur theatricals, the study of wild flowers, of the birds, palmistry, handwriting and character, the Romany jib, the spasmodic study of German and French--for the time these are the things for which I live; incidentally I followed my profession. Perhaps I deceive myself in thinking I have more moderation than my father. At least I can see my tendency and attempt some self-discipline. There is this marked difference between us: He makes himself believe what he wants to believe, while the more I want a thing to be so, the more I am afraid of being deceived into thinking it is so. I want to face things as they are always; endure them, yield to them, or forego them, as my will elects, or circumstances decree, but never to cheat myself into thinking that they are so, if such is not the case. If Father and I wanted to do a given thing, and the weather threatened to be unfavourable, Father would be likely to scrutinize the sky, announce that it was not going to rain, and start out hopefully; I should know I couldn’t tell if I did scan the sky, but, with a strong feeling that it probably would rain, would start out, in spite of misgivings, taking the precaution, however, to carry my umbrella. Mother’s excesses take her into other fields: Always she has been a lover of flowers; garden flowers and houseplants have been her hobbies. How she would pore over the Vick’s catalogues, and stoop for hours over her flowerbeds, and go miles to lug black dirt to enrich the soil! Indifferent to sun, rain, heat, and cold, pulling weeds and caring for her treasures, she would forget her rheumatic tendencies and the pain that would make her groan outright when under a roof. As a young girl it tried me sorely that she would do these things at such unseasonable times, pottering in the yard in her old clothes when I wanted her to look tidy in the afternoon. But what especially disturbed me was that she would leave the dinner table standing to pursue her craze. It was not so much that I objected to doing the dishes after school; if they had been piled away in the kitchen, and the dining room put in order, I believe I should not have said a word--it was that sickening feeling on coming home and seeing the table just as we had risen from it that was one of the real trials of my girlhood. I used to plead with her, but all in vain. My training with Cousin Prudence had made me particular about these things, but I should doubtless have been much the same anyhow. I would urge how much more she would enjoy the afternoon if she would give up a half hour to doing the work. I never could understand her perversity in this, for she knew it distressed us girls, and, in a way, seemed sorry. Many and bitter are the tears I have shed over the dish-pan at five in the afternoon; and how ashamed I was if other girls