JUNE 9th.

I don’t believe that I could ever love Eugenia very dearly, because she makes me feel uncomfortable so often.  She has a way of looking down on you that would rile anybody.  But she is a fascinating sort of girl, when she wants to be friendly and entertaining.  We have been in her room all morning, listening to her talk.

It must be grand to live in one of the biggest hotels in the world, and see all the sights she sees.  I imagine it is a sort of a palace.  She showed us the picture of her three best friends at school.  It is in a big silver locket set with sapphires, and hangs over a corner of her mirror.  We heard a great deal of them this morning.  She seems to think more of that Mollie and Fay and Kell than she does of her father.

It is funny that when you are with Eugenia you can’t help feeling the same way she does about what she’s telling; that it is right to break the rules and skip recitations and torment the teachers and play jokes on the girls not in their set.  She seems to have a great influence over Lloyd.  I don’t believe godmother would like it if she knew how much.  Already Lloyd has promised to tease her father and mother into letting her go to New York next fall, to enter Eugenia’s school.  She told us that it is very select, and said, “You know sometimes schools that advertise themselves as being awfully select are no better than those horrid public schools, for they take anybody who applies, no matter how common they are.”

Joyce asked her why she called public schools horrid, and she answered in such a disgusted, patronising way, “Oh, nobody who is anybody would go to a public school.”

That made Joyce mad, and she told her that she went to one and that she was proud of it; that where she lived public schools were considered better than the private ones.  They had better teachers and more progressive methods; and she said she wouldn’t give up the Plainsville High School for all the select seminaries in New York.

Then Eugenia drawled in such a bored tone, “Oh, wouldn’t you!  Well, maybe you wouldn’t, being from the West, you know.  I’ve always heard it spoken of out there as wild and woolly, and I suppose it is all a matter of taste.”

Then she gave a provoking little laugh, and began to hum a tune, as if public schools and people who went to them were too common for her to think about.  Joyce looked out of the window with a sort of don’t-care expression, and said something in French.  Of course I couldn’t understand it, but she told me afterward that it was a well-known proverb about the opinion of a wise fool.