Generally keeping a diary is very much a matter of sentiment, but with Katie Ashley it was done only in fulfillment of a promise, and not at all from any desire to record either feelings or events. Mrs. Ashley had several daughters, all well educated, but all singularly averse to writing letters. They were dutiful enough in other ways, but it was very uncomfortable for their mother when she was separated from them to have no communication except through an occasional telegraphic dispatch. It was too late to make a reform with grown-up children, but Mrs. Ashley determined that Katie, her youngest child, should become so familiar with her pen that she would be free from the family failing; so she exacted the promise when she sent her to boarding-school that made daily entries in her elegantly bound diary the condition of receiving a larger allowance of pocket-money than had ever been given to her sisters.
The record was to be kept entirely private—sacred, Katie called it—and no one at home was ever to ask to see it or even to allude to it. But in the vacations, when Katie used to go off on little trips with her mother, she used to get very confidential at bed-time, and her talks about school usually ended in her getting the book out of her trunk, and the tiny silver key off her watch-chain, and unlocking the miniature padlock which secured the covers, and reading page after page aloud to her very appreciative hearer. Sometimes the details were very scant, sometimes they were quite full and interesting. It all depended on the writer’s mood at the time of writing. A few specimens will show the curious variations in this respect:
“September 18.
“Arrived here at school.
“September 19.
“Five new girls. One is a beauty, prettier than Lily; her name is Edna Tryon. Seems to feel pretty aristocratic—turns her nose up at almost every thing.
“September 20.
“I forgot to put down that one of the new girls looks like a chambermaid, and a very poor class of one, too. She don’t compare to our maids. Mrs. Abbott wants us to be good to her. There’s a long story about it, very interesting. Mem.—Tell mamma about it when I get home.
“September 21.
“The girls are horrid to Mary Ann Stubbs.