Palestrina and I were alone, for Ellicomb had left us a few days before, and we hear from the Jamiesons that he is a daily visitor at their house. Thomas and Anthony were out shooting, and Mrs. Fielden had gone for a walk over the hills.
"I have a thousand things to do," said Palestrina, when Evan and the minister had departed.
"I also have a thousand things to do," I replied.
"Don't tire yourself," said Palestrina. "What are you going to do?"
"I am going to re-write my diary," I said.
"But, my dear," said Palestrina, "that would be the work of months."
"I am only going to correct all the mistakes I have made in it," I replied; and I took my book and a pen, and went and sat in the little room on the ground-floor which they call my den.
We once had an old aunt, Palestrina and I, who kept a diary all her life, and when any of the relatives whom she mentioned in its pages came to die, she used to go through all the back numbers of her journal and insert affectionate epithets in front of the names of the deceased. For instance (my aunt's existence was not marked by any thrilling events), the entry would perhaps be as follows: "Maria was late for breakfast this morning. In the afternoon she had her singing-lesson, and afterwards we did some shopping, when Maria tried on her new gown." But the amended entry after Maria's death would be, "Our darling Maria was (a little) late for breakfast this morning; in the afternoon she had her singing-lesson"—and here would probably be a footnote praising Maria's voice—"afterwards we did some shopping, and"—Maria struck out—"my sweet girl tried on her new gown." Any one's death, or even a successful marriage of one of the family, would cause her to revise and correct her diary in this way, and she used to fan the wet ink with a piece of blotting-paper to make it dry black, and thus prevent posterity from knowing that the words written over the lines were an afterthought induced by subsequent events.
It was manifestly an unfair way of keeping a diary. But I can claim her example and hereditary taint as an excuse for my own dishonesty this afternoon. I read through my diary with a sense of utter shame, and wherever I found, for instance, that I had said that Mrs. Fielden was frivolous, or even that she raised her eyebrows in an affected way, I corrected the misstatement by the light of the magnificent discovery I had made that Mrs. Fielden was faultless, and that I loved her. Oh, the beauty of this woman and her blessed kindness! the cunning with which she conceals her unselfishness, and her ridiculous attempts at pretending she is frivolous or worldly.
Alas! there were so many misstatements to correct, and so many dear adjectives to fill in, that I was not halfway through my task before Mrs. Fielden herself tapped at the window and looked in.