Nov. 30.-I have so much to do that I have little time for writing. The way the children wear out their shoes and stockings, the speed with which their hair grows, the way they bump their heads and pinch their fingers, and the insatiable demand for stories, is something next to miraculous. Not a day passes that somebody doesn't need something bought; that somebody else doesn't choke itself, and that I don't have to tell stories till I feel my intellect reduced to the size of a pea. If ever I was alive and wide awake, however, it is just now, and in spite of some vague shadows of, I don't know what, I am very happy indeed. So is dear mother. She and the doctor have become bosom friends. He keeps her making beef-tea, scraping lint, and boiling calves feet for jelly, till the house smells like an hospital. I suppose he thinks me a poor, selfish, frivolous girl, whom nothing would tempt to raise a finger for his invalids. But, of course, I do not care what he thinks. Dec. 4.-Dr. Elliott came this morning to ask mother to go with him to see a child who had met with a horrible accident. She turned pale, and pressed her lips together, but went at once to get ready. Then my long-suppressed wrath burst out. "How can you ask poor mother to go and see such sights?" I cried. "You must think her nothing but a stone, if you suppose that after the way in which my father died-" "It was indeed most thoughtless in me," he interrupted; "but your mother is such a rare woman, so decided and self-controlled, yet so gentle, so full of tender sympathy, that I hardly know where to look for just the help I need to-day. If you could see this poor child, even you would justify me." "Even you!" you monster of selfishness, heart of stone, floating bubble, "even you would justify it!" How cruel, how unjust, how unforgiving he is! I rushed out of the room, and cried until I was tired. DEC. 6.-Mother says she feels really grateful to Dr. E. for taking her to see that child, and to help soothe and comfort it while he went through with a severe, painful operation which she would not describe, because she fancied I looked pale. I said I should think the child's mother the most proper person to soothe it on such an occasion. "The poor thing has no mother," she said, reproachfully. "What has got into you, Kate? You do not seem at all like yourself." "I should think you had enough to do with this great house to keep in order, so many mouths to fill, and so many servants to oversee, without wearing yourself out with nursing all Dr. Elliott's poor folks," I said, gloomily. "The more I have to do the happier I am," she replied. "Dear Katy, the old wound isn't healed yet, and I like to be with those who have wounds and bruises of their own. And Dr. Elliott seems to have divined this by instinct."