Marjorie smiled at the final sentence of the foreword. It sounded so like Miss Susanna. The little preamble was distinctly boyish, she thought. It had the dignity, however, belonging to one brought up in loneliness.
She turned the page. The next item was brief and dated three years later, but again May 1, it stated:
“My birthday again. I found this book today in my desk. I had forgotten its use until I opened it. I shall try once more to keep a record of personal events. Three years between the two entries. How time passes.”
To her surprise the next entry was dated July tenth, eight years later. It was humorously rueful.
“I appear to be most unsuccessful as a journalist. I have the will to record my doings but not the execution. Tonight I am in an oddly pleasant state of mind over the day’s events. The Vernons, of Vernon Lodge, gave an archery meet this afternoon. They held the meet in honor of a cousin, Miss Angela Vernon, who has come to make her home with them. Miss Vernon is an orphan with a pleasing girlish face and soft chestnut curls. Her voice is low and sweet and she has a merry fashion of showing her small white teeth in laughing which is captivating. I enjoyed her company, which I cannot state to be the truth of the majority of young women whom I have met. I have no fault to find with these except that they seem to be possessed of so little depth. What a pretty name Angela is. I like it far better than Rachel, Maria, Abagail, Betsy or other feminine names similarly plain and ugly.”
The Vernons’ archery meet had staged the opening incidents in Brooke Hamilton’s love affair. After the entry of July tenth, followed others, in somewhat scattered dating of the same year. Hardly one of these but that made mention of Angela Vernon. The young, attentive Brooke Hamilton had been horseback riding with Angela. He had escorted her to a lawn party. He had danced repeatedly with her at the Hamilton country-side ball. He wrote at some length in his journal of the pleasure he derived from her company. Yet into his writing never crept the word love.
Marjorie read on and on, forgetful of all but the world the journal conjured for her in which the author and Angela Vernon had once lived and played their parts. Thus far she had experienced no desire toward tears. Instead she was inclined to signal annoyance at Brooke Hamilton for his attitude of complacency toward charming Angela Vernon. At first she had been amused by his naive admissions to his journal, so utterly devoid of sentimentality. She had not then specially sympathized with Angela. From his written comments she could guess nothing of the young girl’s mind toward him. An entry dated almost two years later than the fateful archery meet brought an odd aching sadness to Marjorie’s heart.
“May 10. Life has moved very agreeably for me in my ancestral home during the years of my adolescence. Since my meeting with the Marquis de Lafayette, however, all within me is changed. There was a time to dance, to play, to be irresponsibly youthful. That time has past. I am facing the great problem of how one day to carry out my dream of founding a democratic college for young women in loving memory of my mother. In order to do this I shall require great riches. These I have not, though my father is not counted less than rich. I have a plan by which I may attain wealth in time. It must needs carry me far from home. So be it. I am a free spirit. I am bound by no pledge of love or duty.
“I am well satisfied that Angela and I are not more than friends. Sometimes I wonder if we are even such. She seems often cold, restrained in my presence where formerly she was invariably light and cordially gay. I confess I do not always understand young women. I shall soon be without her comradely company. She is going to Philadelphia to visit the Vernons there and dance at the Assembly Ball. She is very charming. She says she will never marry. Such a statement is not to be taken seriously. I have frequently assured her that she will no doubt wed a man high in the affairs of the United States. She is fitted for diplomatic society.”
Followed other entries of a similar nature. Marjorie could not but marvel at the blindness of young Brooke Hamilton to Angela Vernon’s love for him. Unversed in the ways of young women the very comments he wrote concerning her variable moods toward him Marjorie translated as the attempts of a girl in love to hide her unrequited affection from its indifferent object of worship.