Comme je regrette
     Mon bras si dodu,

for her arm has never lost its roundness, and her face is one of those that cannot be cheated of their charm even if they live long enough to look upon the grown up grandchildren of their coevals.

It is a wonder how Number Five can find the time to be so much to so many friends of both sexes, in spite of the fact that she is one of the most insatiable of readers.  She not only reads, but she remembers; she not only remembers, but she records, for her own use and pleasure, and for the delight and profit of those who are privileged to look over her note-books.  Number Five, as I think I have said before, has not the ambition to figure as an authoress.  That she could write most agreeably is certain.  I have seen letters of hers to friends which prove that clearly enough.  Whether she would find prose or verse the most natural mode of expression I cannot say, but I know she is passionately fond of poetry, and I should not be surprised if, laid away among the pressed pansies and roses of past summers, there were poems, songs, perhaps, of her own, which she sings to herself with her fingers touching the piano; for to that she tells her secrets in tones sweet as the ring-dove’s call to her mate.

I am afraid it may be suggested that I am drawing Number Five’s portrait too nearly after some model who is unconsciously sitting for it; but have n’t I told you that you must not look for flesh and blood personalities behind or beneath my Teacups?  I am not going to make these so lifelike that you will be saying, This is Mr. or Miss, or Mrs. So-and-So.  My readers must remember that there are very many pretty, sweet, amiable girls and women sitting at their pianos, and finding chords to the music of their heart-strings.  If I have pictured Number Five as one of her lambs might do it, I have succeeded in what I wanted to accomplish.  Why don’t I describe her person?  If I do, some gossip or other will be sure to say, “Oh, he means her, of course,” and find a name to match the pronoun.

It is strange to see how we are all coming to depend upon the friendly aid of Number Five in our various perplexities.  The Counsellor asked her opinion in one of those cases where a divorce was too probable, but a reconciliation was possible.  It takes a woman to sound a woman’s heart, and she found there was still love enough under the ruffled waters to warrant the hope of peace and tranquillity.  The young Doctor went to her for counsel in the case of a hysteric girl possessed with the idea that she was a born poetess, and covering whole pages of foolscap with senseless outbursts, which she wrote in paroxysms of wild excitement, and read with a rapture of self-admiration which there was nothing in her verses to justify or account for.  How sweetly Number Five dealt with that poor deluded sister in her talk with the Doctor!  “Yes,” she said to him, “nothing can be fuller of vanity, self-worship, and self-deception.