Never in all my life have I felt so disappointed, and compelled to put a good face upon a bad business, as when I splashed through the wet garden and entered the empty house where there was not even a flower to welcome my arrival.  The rooms are too large and bare....  Why did I not think of that before?

All the same, decorum must be maintained, and my entry was not undignified.

Ah, the rain, the rain!  Jeanne and Torp are still cleaning up.  They mean to go on half the night, scrubbing and sweeping as though we expected company to-morrow.  I start unpacking my trunk, take out a few things and stop—­begin again and stop again, horrified at the quantity of clothes I’ve brought.  It would have been more sensible to send them to one of our beloved “charity sales.”  They are of no use or pleasure now.  Black merino and a white woollen shawl—­what more do I want here?

God knows how I wish at the present moment I were back in the Old Market Place, even if I only had Richard’s society to bore me.

What am I doing here?  What do I want here?  To cry, without having to give an account of one’s tears to anyone?

Of course, all this is only the result of the rain.  I was longing to be here.  It was not a mere hysterical whim.  No, no....

It was my own wish to bury myself here.

* * * * *

Yesterday I was all nerves.  To-day I feel as fresh and lively as a cricket.

We have been hanging the pictures, and made thirty-six superfluous holes in the new walls.  There is no way of concealing them. (I must write to Richard to have my engravings framed.) It would be stretching a point to say we are skilled picture-hangers; we were nearly as awkward as men when they try to hook a woman’s dress for her.  But the pictures were hung somehow, and look rather nice now they are up.

But why on earth did I give Torp my sketch of “A Villa by the Sea” to hang in her kitchen?  Was I afraid to have it near me?  Or was it some stupid wish to hurt his feelings? His only gift....  I feel ashamed of myself.

Jeanne has arranged flowers everywhere, and that helps to make the house more homelike.

The place is mine, and I take possession of it.  Now the sun is shining.  I find pleasure in examining each article of furniture and remembering the days when we discussed the designs together.  I ought not to have let him do all that.  It was senseless of me.

* * * * *

They are much to be envied who can pass away the time in their own society.  I am in my element when I can watch other people blowing soap-bubbles; but to blow them myself....