I suppose it was the awful disappointment of knowing Father couldn’t come, and being so miserable myself (not one line yet from that person named William Spencer Sloane, who is probably married to an elderly woman by this time), and because of my sureness that no human being could be depended on in time of temptation, especially vigorous, aggressive temptations that come out of the West, that I gave help where help seemed to be needed, and now again I am in everybody’s mouth.  Also my ankles are still a little sore from the weight of the window being on them as I hung out, but they are nearly well, and even if they were not it would not matter.  Two young hearts are happy and a proud person is not, and the blame is on me.  That also doesn’t matter.  I am soon going away.

The thing I did, which maybe I shouldn’t have done, was to help little Amy Frances Winston get married.  She is the property of her grandmother, who is a very important part of Twickenham Town.  Having no parents or sisters or brothers, and only enough money of her own for her keep, and no spunk or spirit, she has gone on for years loving an awfully nice chap named Taylor French, with little chance of ever marrying him, and then in hops this Miss Frisk, who asks her why she doesn’t quit fumbling and stop fearing, and the thing is done.

There is nothing the matter with Taylor French except he is not Ancestral.  Mrs. Brandon, Amy’s grandmother, is diseased on the subject of ancestry, and the first thing she asks about a man is who is he.  Knowing she would want to know who I was, I mentioned to her one day that I had never had any grandparents on either side (living ones I meant), and that we were not historic, and no member of our family had ever been distinguished (for righteousness, though I didn’t use the word), and that we had made our own way in life, which was true, for Father didn’t have a thing but what he was making when he married Mother.  I also told her I did not mind in the least, and if I did I would try to remember that Christ was a carpenter and St. Paul a sail-maker, though I’d never care to be intimate with St. Paul.  And I told her I thought it was yourself that counted most, after all, and not dead people, though it must be nice to know somebody in your family had been something if you were not.  All she said was, “Are you a suffragist?” When I said I was and I hoped I didn’t look as if I were not, for I wouldn’t like anybody to be mistaken about it, she gave me a long look and left the room.

She did not exactly draw her skirts aside with her hand as she passed me, but she did it inwardly; that is, I imagined she did from the expression of her face, and the next day she must have fumigated the house, for when I went by an awful smell of sulphur was coming from it.  She is a low bender and bower in church at the mention of a name belonging to one she believes a Prince in disguise, who in another life will receive her into His kingdom, and whom she