"_February_ 21.--The journey is over, and I am at Cousin Eleanor's. How the evils that we dread shrink into nothing when we fairly meet them! Cousin Eleanor received me kindly, and looked neither so grave nor so cold as my memory, assisted by my imagination, had pictured her; and Ashcroft is a pretty place, even in midwinter. I am never tired of sitting at the library-window, and looking at the bare branches of the black ash-trees, as they spread out their network against the winter sky. I have a little desk near the bay-window, where I have my drawing and writing materials, and where I pretend to write and draw, while Eleanor occupies a larger one at the opposite window. Eleanor is a woman of business,--keeps all her accounts, looks after her farm and servants, and manages all her own affairs, and, though a strict and exacting mistress, is neither harsh nor unkind;--she evidently intends to perform all her own duties punctually and faithfully, and expects others to do the same. I often look at her with wonder, her nature is so different from mine,--never impulsive, always cool and steady,--full of ceaseless activity, yet never hurried, and seemingly never perplexed. I sometimes think she sees the whole of her life mapped out before her, and takes up every event in order. With the exception of the servants, we are the only occupants of the house, Eleanor does not seek nor desire the society of her neighbors; and so while she works I dream, read, or answer Madge or Bertha's letters. "_February_ 28.--It has been snowing ceaselessly for two days. I have read, drawn, and sewed till I am as weary as Marianna in the moated grange. I have yawned aloud a dozen times, but Eleanor does not mind it. She has been extremely busy with accounts, papers, and letters. For the last four hours I do not think she has spoken a word. I hear nothing but the scratch of her pen as it moves over the paper, and the wind in the ash-trees. I have taken Madge's journal in despair. Ah, Madge! I wish the bonnie girl were here;--how we would talk nonsense by the hour together, just to keep our tongues in practice, and Madge would hunt down an idea through all its turnings and windings, as if it were a hare, and she a dog in chase of it! A ring at the door;--I hope it may be some human body that will make Cousin Eleanor open her lips at last.