MARCH 1.
AUNTY sent for us all to dine with her to-day to celebrate Lucy's fifteenth birthday. Ever since Lucy behaved so heroically in regard to little Emma, really saving her life, Ernest says Aunty seems to feel that she cannot do enough for her. The child has taken the most unaccountable fancy to me, strangely enough, and when we got there she came to meet me with something like cordiality.
"Mamma permits me to be the bearer of agreeable news," she said, "because this is my birthday. A friend, of whom you are very fond, has just arrived, and is impatient to embrace you.
"To embrace me?" I cried. "You foolish child!" And the next moment I found myself in my mother's arms!
The despised Lucy had been the means of giving me this pleasure. It seems that Aunty had told her she should choose her own birthday treat, and that, after solemn meditation, she had decided that to see dear mother again would be the most agreeable thing she could think of. I have never told you, dear journal, why I did not go home last summer, and never shall. If you choose to fancy that I couldn't afford it you can!
Well! wasn't it nice to see mother, and to read in her dear, loving face that she was satisfied with her poor, wayward Katy, and fond of her as ever! I only longed for Ernest's coming, that she might see us together, and see how he loved me.
He came; I rushed out to meet him and dragged him in. But it seemed as if he had grown stupid and awkward. All through the dinner I watched for one of those loving glances which should proclaim to mother the good understanding between us, but watched in vain.
"It will come by and by," I thought. "When we get by ourselves mother will see how fond of me he is." But "by and by" it was just the same. I was preoccupied, and mother asked me if I were well. It was all very foolish I dare say, and yet I did want to have her know that with all my faults he still loves me. Then, besides this disappointment, I have to reproach myself for misunderstanding poor Lucy as I have done. Because she was not all fire and fury like myself, I need not have assumed that she had no heart. It is just like me; I hope I shall never be so severe in my judgment again.
APRIL 30.-Mother has just gone. Her visit has done me a world of good. She found out something to like in father at once, and then something good in Martha. She says father's sufferings are real, not fancied; that his error is not knowing where to locate his disease, and is starving one week and over-eating the next. She charged me not to lay up future misery for myself by misjudging him now, and to treat him as a daughter ought without the smallest regard to his appreciation of it. Then as to Martha, she declares that I have no idea how much she does to reduce our expenses, to keep the house in order and to relieve us from care. "But, mother," I said, "did you notice what horrid butter we have? And it is all her doing."
"But the butter won't last forever," she replied. "Don't make yourself miserable about such a trifle. For my part, it is a great relief to me to know that with your delicate health you have this tower of strength to lean on."