“At last, dear old book, repository of all my secret thoughts and feelings, I am free to come to you once more, and talk to you as I can talk to no one else. Daisy is asleep in her crib after a longer struggle than usual, for the little elf seemed to have a suspicion that to-morrow night some other voice than mine would sing her lullaby. Bertie, too, the darling, cried himself to sleep because I was going away, while the other children manifested in various ways their sorrow at my projected departure. Bless them all, how I do love children, and hope if I am ever married, I may have at least a dozen; though if twelve would make me twice as faded and sickly, and,—and,—yes, I will say it,—as peevish as Margaret’s six have made her, I should rather be excused. But what nonsense to be written by me, Dora Freeman, spinster, aged twenty-eight,—the Beechwood gossips said when the new minister went home with me from the sewing society. But they were mistaken, for if the family Bible is to be trusted, I was only twenty-five last Christmas, and I don’t believe I look as old as that.” Here there was a break in the diary, while Dora glanced in the mirror at a graceful little figure, with sloping shoulders and white neck, surmounted by a well shaped head with masses of reddish-brown hair, waving just enough to suggest an idea of the curls into which it might be easily coaxed; low forehead; piquant nose, with an undeniable curve which ill-natured people call a turn-up; bright, honest eyes of reddish-brown, like the hair; mouth which did not look as if it had ever said a disagreeable thing; rows of white, even teeth, with complexion remarkable for nothing except that it was natural, and just now a shade or two paler than usual, because its owner was weary with the months and years of care which had fallen on her youthful shoulders. This was the picture Dora saw, and nodding to the _tout ensemble_ a little approving nod, and pushing behind her ears the heavy braids of hair to see if the style were becoming, as somebody once had told her, she resumed her pen and diary, as follows: