The snow is on the ground; 'tis a beautiful white world. Yet to-day has been a dull day. I had my lesson yesterday. I spent the whole of this afternoon preparing a list of Christmas charities, in which Aunt Caroline and Ida Seymour helped me, good souls. I can think of nothing but flannel this evening. That is a lie, by the way; I almost wish it were not. Yesterday Gabriel and I had an adventure. I was walking part of the way back with him and Jane Norton, who had been taking tea with my old ladies, and as we went past a cottage, just off the lane, we heard fearful screams. Gabriel sprang in, I following, and there we found a woman beating a little girl with a broom. Gabriel's eyes were like fire; he caught the child in one hand, the broom in the other; I thought he meant to bring it down on the woman's back. We stayed there some time, he lecturing the mother, I consoling the poor mite. She was wretchedly clad; I shall bring her some clothes to-morrow. I am dull. I meant to write you a long letter, but somehow I can't. Farewell until to-morrow. December 13th. What will you be thinking of me? Your silence is almost more unbearable than a letter of reproach would be; I had not realised until I found the above fragment in my desk just now, how miserably long it is since last I wrote to you. Write to me, my dearest; I need to feel your love. I think I am not very well just now; you must forgive me, yet don't be anxious on my account. I don't feel very well, that's all; there is nothing the matter with me. Neither is there anything to tell you; all goes on as usual. Gabriel is well. Oh, my pretty Constance, I cannot write! I shall send off this miserable scrap, and write again very soon. Your poor fool, EMILIA. LETTER XXI. December 18th. Thank Heaven that you are here, in the world; I should die if you were not. Let me think, where shall I begin? At the end; that is nearest. I have only just come upstairs; I have been shaking in the dark. They are beasts; I hate them all. I was sitting playing cribbage with grandmamma after supper, when Uncle George was announced. He wanted to speak to me, he said. I took him into the breakfast room, and there he told me in a fat pompous voice that I--O Dio, my blood still burns to think of it, and the way in which he said it--that I was getting myself talked about in the neighbourhood; that probably I didn't know, owing to my foreign education, that it wasn't the thing here in England to let oneself be seen constantly alone in the company of a young man; that he thought it his duty, etc., etc. "Thank you," said I,--my very skin felt tight,--"I see that I must be more underhand in my actions, and contrive to see my friends entirely on the sly."