After breakfast we went for a walk in the village; and that wasn’t bad, only another unpleasant thing happened first. I don’t think I said that when I got up, I tied Mother’s penwiper round my neck with a bootlace, because that made me feel nice. Well, when we were starting to go out Mrs. Charlton suddenly said, “What is that untidy piece of black tape showing above your dress?” I pretended not to hear. I didn’t know what else to do, because of course I couldn’t tell her about private things like that. She asked me again, but I still didn’t say anything. Then she shook her head and said, “Sullen, sullen,” to herself, though I was just going away to take the penwiper off so as to please her. At least I didn’t take it right off, I tied it round my waist instead, where the bootlace couldn’t show, only it was very prickly. It wasn’t my fault keeping Mrs. Charlton waiting either, for I had to quite undress to do it. I forgot to say that it was a very nice penwiper, that I’d made for Mother as a birthday present, when I was quite little. It had “Mother” worked on it in beads, and the date and how old she was; at least I’d made a mistake about the last and put seventy-eight. You see, Father used to tell us that was Mother’s age for a joke, and we really believed it. Of course I was only a little girl then. The village wasn’t far away, and when we came back, I played in the garden. There wasn’t much to do and so I climbed a tree. Almost directly Mrs. Charlton came tearing out in a great fuss and said that it was most dangerous and unladylike and that I was never to do such a thing again. I felt very cross, because really it was a silly little tree that a baby could climb, but I remembered what I promised Mother, so I just walked about in a stupid, grown-up way and wondered if lunch-time was ever coming. In the afternoon it was worse, because it began to rain. Mrs. Charlton and I sat in the drawing-room and did nothing. There was a Persian cat, who you would think would have been some comfort, but he was the stupidest cat I ever saw. He just slept the whole time. Mrs. Charlton asked me then if I hadn’t got any needlework, so I went and fetched the mat that I’m working for Cousin Sophy’s wedding present. (It will be rather late, because Cousin Sophy went and got married about a year ago, before I could get it done; I do think she needn’t have been in such a hurry.) I sat there and sewed for ages and ages until I thought my head would drop off; at last I found I’d forgotten to bring the skein of the silk, and I couldn’t do any more. That was nice.