“I do hope you are not going to be troublesome, Barbara,” she said.  “You are too young to understand, but I want everything to go well tonight, and Leila ought not to be worried.”

“Can’t I dance a little?”

“You can sit on the stairs and watch.”  She looked fidgity.  “I—­I’ll send up a nice dinner, and you can put on your dark blue, with a fresh collar, and—­it ought to satisfy you, Barbara, that you are at home and posibly have brought the meazles with you, without making a lot of fuss.  When you come out——­”

“Oh, very well,” I murmured, in a resined tone.  “I don’t care enough about it to want to dance with a lot of Souses anyhow.”

“Barbara!” said mother.

“I suppose you have some one on the String for her,” I said, with the abandon of my thwarted Hopes.  “Well, I hope she gets him.  Because if not I darsay I shall be kept in the Cradle for years to come.”

“You will come out when you reach a proper Age,” she said, “if your Impertanence does not kill me off before my Time.”

Dear Dairy, I am fond of my mother, and I felt repentent and stricken.

So I became more agreable, although feeling all the time that she does not and never will understand my Temperment.  I said: 

“I don’t care about Society, and you know it, mother.  If you’ll keep Leila out of this room, which isn’t much but is my Castle while here, I’ll probably go to bed early.”

“Barbara, sometimes I think you have no afection for your Sister.”

I had agreed to honesty January first, so I replied.

“I have, of course, mother.  But I am fonder of her while at school than at home.  And I should be a better Sister if not condemed to her old things, including hats which do not suit my Tipe.”

Mother moved over magestically to the door and shut it.  Then she came and stood over me.

“I’ve come to the conclusion, Barbara,” she said, “to appeal to your better Nature.  Do you wish Leila to be married and happy?”

“I’ve just said, mother——­”

“Because a very interesting thing is happening,” said mother, trying to look playfull.  “I—­a chance any girl would jump at.”

So here I sit, Dear Dairy, while there are sounds of revelery below, and Sis jumps at her chance, which is the Honorable Page Beres ford, who is an Englishman visiting here because he has a weak heart and can’t fight.  And father is away on business, and I am all alone.

I have been looking for a rash, but no luck.

Ah me, how the strains of the orkestra recall that magic night in the theater when Adrian Egleston looked down into my eyes and although ostensably to an actress, said to my beating heart:  “My Darling!  My Woman!”

3 A. M. I wonder if I can controll my hands to write.

In mother’s room across the hall I can hear furious Voices, and I know that Leila is begging to have me sent to Switzerland.  Let her beg.  Switzerland is not far from England, and in England——­