She put her arm around me and kissed me.

“Camilla,” she said gently—­she has the softest, dreamiest voice I ever heard—­“I believe in the aristocracy of brains and virtue.  You have both.”

Farewell, oh Soulless Corporation!  A long, last, lingering farewell, for Camilla E. Rose, who used to sit upon the high stool and add figures for you at ten dollars a week, is far away making toast for two kindly souls, one of whom tells her she has brains and virtue and the other one opens his mouth to speak, and then pushes fifty cents at her instead.

Danny Watson, bless his heart! is bringing madam up.  He has wound himself into her heart and the “whyness of the what” is packing up to go.

May 1st.—­Mrs. Francis is going silly over Danny.  A few days ago she asked me if I could cut a pattern for a pair of pants.  I told her I had made pants once or twice and meekly inquired whom she wanted the pants for.  She said for a boy, of course—­and she looked at me rather severely.  I knew they must be for Danny, and cut the pattern about the size for him.  She went into the sewing-room, and I only saw her at meal times for two days.  She wrestled with the garment.

Last night she asked me if I would take a parcel to Danny with her love.  I was glad to go, for I was just dying to see how she had got along.

When I held them up before Mrs. Watson the poor woman gasped.

“Save us all!” she cried.  “Them’ll fit none of us.  We’re poor, but, thank God, we’re not deformed!”

I’ll never forget the look of those pants.  They haunt me still.

May 15th.—­Pearl Watson is the sweetest and best little girl I know.  Her gratitude for even the smallest kindness makes me want to cry.  She told me the other day she was sure Danny was going to be a doctor.  She bases her hopes on the questions that Danny asks.  How do you know you haven’t got a gizzard?  How would you like to be ripped clean up the back? and Where does your lap go to when you stand up?  She said, “Ma and us all have hopes o’ Danny.”

Mrs. Francis has a new role, that of matchmaker, though I don’t suppose she knows it.  She had Mary Barner and the young minister for tea to-night.  Mary grows dearer and sweeter every day.  People say it is not often one girl praises another; but Mary is a dear little gray-eyed saint with the most shapely hands I ever saw.  Reverend Hugh thinks so, too, I have no doubt.  It was really too bad to waste a good fruit salad on him though, for I know he didn’t know what he was eating.  Excelsior would taste like ambrosia to him if Mary sat opposite—­all of which is very much as it should be, I know.  I thought for a while Mary liked Dr. Clay pretty well, but I know it is not serious, for she talks quite freely of him.  She is very grateful to him for helping her so often with her father.  But those gray-eyed Scotch people never talk of what is nearest the heart.  I wonder if he knows that Mary Barner is a queen among women.  I don’t like Scotchmen.  They take too much for granted.