I have not been sleeping very well lately, and my dreams have given me the creeps and left me so irritable that if I had only a considerate and philanthropic employer like the one Rose patronises I am sure I should have been sent away somewhere for a change. Being my own employer, I stay on and make Mother Hubbard look worried. And the worst of it is she does not discuss my state of health as a sensible woman should, but just pets me and tells me it "will all come right in the end." When I ask her what it is that is to come right she smiles and relapses into silence. If she were not so gentle and loving and altogether sweet I should feel inclined to shake her. Did I not say that the devil had his intimates in Windyridge? I nod to him myself just now, but Simon Barjona Higgins has gone into business with him on quite a large scale, and my friend Maria must surely be casting longing backward glances in the direction of widowhood. It makes one feel that matrimony is a snare which women are fools to enter with their eyes open; though I suppose all men are not given up to Satan. Fancy Rose saying there were no humbugs about here, when such a man as Barjona flourishes unabashed! But when I come to think of it, she didn't quite say that: she simply said that my neighbours hated humbug as they hate the devil, and Barjona loves them both. The thought of him makes me sick, and when I found out what an old Shylock the man is I went into the studio with a hammer and smashed his negatives into a hundred pieces, with as much zest as if I had been a militant suffragette breaking windows in Regent Street under the eyes of a scandalised policeman. If nature had been clothed in drab on Wednesday afternoon when the report of unusual occurrences in the village drew me to the little group of excited people who were discussing them it would have been appropriate to the occasion. But she wasn't--she was dressed in her gayest and most captivating summer clothing. I think that in itself is vexing. Why should nature look so pleased and happy when people are miserable, and so emphasise the contrast? If I am grumpy to begin with it makes me feel ever so much worse to know that nature is laughing at me, and is just as bright and optimistic as I am wretched. And, contrariwise, if I do wake up one morning determined to "bid dull care begone"--who was it used that expression recently?--and be merry and cheerful, the skies are sure to be like lead, and the ram is certain to drip, drip, in that sullen, persistent fashion that would drive Mark Tapley himself to pessimism. There is a law of cussedness, I am convinced, and I believe I have discovered it. Mother Hubbard says it is my liver, and prescribes pills!