I myself did not make much preparation. Just a new elastic to my hat, and new laces to my boots. How delightful it is to care for no man! How it simplifies life! All this bother about Ariadne has choked me off love for a long while to come. I don't care if it never comes my way at all. But I am only fourteen, and have not got the place in my head ready for it yet, anyway. I don't believe that Love is a woman's whole existence any more than it is a man's. We are like ships, made in water-tight compartments, so that if something goes wrong with one compartment the whole concern isn't done for. Until I am old enough to set a whole compartment aside for Love, I can be easy and watch the others wallowing. Life is one huge party to me, and the girls who are not out yet watching it through the bannisters and getting a taste of the ices now and then. I don't study dinners at home, we have never given one in Cinque Cento House. George entertains a good deal at the Club, when he can get Lady Scilly or some one like that to play hostess and give the signal to rise for him, a thing, somehow, that no man ever seems capable of doing for himself. Mother and Aunt Gerty saw us off for Morpeth, at Whitby station. Aunt Gerty looked far more excited than just seeing a couple of nieces off could make her, and I soon saw the reason of it, Mr. Bowser was leaving by the same train! He went first-class of course, which was annoying for Aunt Gerty, as that made him be at the other end of the train, too far off to see how prettily she kissed her nieces good-bye, and bought them _Funny Bits_ and chocolate creams. We got the creams anyhow. Children often profit by their elders' foolish fancies. Mother wouldn't even let us kiss her out of the carriage-window for fear the train started and we got dragged out, and sure enough we did go on suddenly, in that slidy, masterful way trains have. I have a particular affinity to trains. My great-grandfather built an engine and had it called after him. When he was dying, he was taken in his chair to where the Great Northern trains pass every day, and drew his last breath as the Scotch Express rattled by.