"Your mother does not wish you to go to the theater again, and who are we to go against her wishes? And anyhow, maybe if you met this fellow and talked to him, you would find him a disappointment. Many a pretty girl I have seen in my time, who didn't pan out according to specifications when I finally met her." At this revelation of my beloved father's true self, I was almost stunned. It is evident that I do not inherit my being true as steel from him. Nor from my mother, who is like steel in hardness but not in being true to anything but social position. As I record this awful day, dear Dairy, there comes again into my mind the thought that I DO NOT BELONG HERE. I am not like them. I do not even resemble them in features. And, if I belonged to them, would they not treat me with more consideration and less discipline? Who, in the family, has my nose? It is all well enough for Hannah to observe that I was a pretty baby with fat cheeks. May not Hannah herself, for some hidden reason, have brought me here, taking away the real I to perhaps languish unseen and "waste my sweetness on the desert air"? But that way lies madness. Life must be made the best of as it is, and not as it might be or indeed ought to be. Father promised before he left that I was not to be scolded, as I felt far from well, and was drinking water about every minute. "I just want to lie here and think about things," I said, when he was going. "I seem to have so many thoughts. And father----" "Yes, chicken." "If I need any help to carry out a plan I have, will you give it to me, or will I have to go to total strangers?" "Good gracious, Bab!" he exclaimed. "Come to me, of course." "And you'll do what you're told?" He looked out into the hall to see if mother was near. Then, dear Dairy, he turned to me and said: "I always have, Bab. I guess I'll run true to form." JANUARY 23RD. Much better today. Out and around. Family (mother and Sis) very dignified and nothing much to say. Evidently have promised father to restrain themselves. Father rushed and not coming home to dinner. Beresford on edge of proposing. Sis very jumpy. LATER: Jane Raleigh is home for her cousin's wedding! Is coming over. We shall take a walk, as I have much to tell her. 6 P. M. What an afternoon! How shall I write it? This is a Milestone in my Life. I have met him at last. Nay, more. I have been in his dressing room, conversing as though accustomed to such things all my life. I have concealed under the mattress a real photograph of him, beneath which he has written, "Yours always, Adrian Egleston." I am writing in bed, as the room is chilly--or I am--and by putting out my hand I can touch his pictured likeness.