It is only since I knew Gabriel that I know how to laugh.  I don’t mean to say that I never laughed before.  Do you remember how we sometimes screamed up in my room at Florence?  I remember, too, as a child, going into wild fits of laughter, and mamma and I having to wipe each other’s eyes.  But these days were few and far between.  I have learned to laugh with my years.  Very fine wit is lost upon me, and I have certainly no native humour of my own; but I do know how to laugh about nothing at all, how to make merry over the thorns of life!  Laughter was not meant for the joyful; it was made for us, the sombre of soul, to save our heart-strings here and there; like the song of a lark in the sky, to bid us lift our eyes from the dust of the road.

Sometimes, when I have been laughing very much, and then remember my pain, I see the vision of a child that dances on a grave-mound in the sun.

Sweet, I’ll go on to-morrow.

January 20th.

I distinguished myself to-day!  It came on to pour while I was at the Cottage, and, in spite of a certain caution that has crept into my actions of late, I stayed there the whole afternoon.

Jane was actually making herself a new dress, so I offered to help her, and we sewed by lamplight at the kitchen table, it being a very dark afternoon.  Gabriel joined us after a while; he thought we looked so cosy that he brought his books and sat at the table too, just opposite me.

You have never really loved any man, you, so perhaps you don’t know what it is to be afraid of your own eyes, because you feel that every time they rest on that thing you love, your poor heart runs and looks out of window.

I seldom look at Gabriel now,—­I dare not.  But there he sat opposite me, poring over his book.  Jane was bent over her sewing.  I forgot her, and I forgot my work too; it slipped from my fingers and fell into my lap.  Suddenly he raised his head,—­it seemed as if all the blood in my body rushed to my face; he had caught me all unguarded; what he might not know was laid bare before him.  With a dull, wide gaze he stared at me, then bent over his book again; he had not seen me; he had merely looked up to get a better view, as it were, of something he had in mind.

Then I, too, bent my head low, for hot tears stood in my silly eyes, and, to my surprise, I felt a soft hand tuck my hair behind my ears, caressingly.  I looked up and saw a world of pity in Jane Norton’s face.  When presently Gabriel left the room to fetch another volume, I said: 

“Jane, he must never know it.”

“My child,” she answered, speaking as softly as I had done, “there is no fear that he should learn it from me.”

“From me, then?” asked I; “is it so plain?”

“You are as pale as the table,” she said.  “Take care of yourself, Em,—­don’t be unhappy, all’s well.”

Just then Gabriel came in, and I left soon after.  You see what an enemy I am to myself.