“Jan. 7.—I have prevailed on my cousin Allen to give me a few days, and he is to occupy the chamber next to mine.
“Jan. 8.—A still night. Allen slept well, but complained of the wind. My own experiences were as before: still whispering and whispering: what is it that he wants to say?
“Jan. 9.—Allen thinks this a very noisy house. He thinks, too, that my cat is an unusually large and fine specimen, but very wild.
“Jan. 10.—Allen and I in the library until 11. He left me twice to see what the maids were doing in the hall: returning the second time he told me he had seen one of them passing through the door at the end of the passage, and said if his wife were here she would soon get them into better order. I asked him what coloured dress the maid wore; he said grey or white. I supposed it would be so.
“Jan. 11.—Allen left me to-day. I must be firm.”
These words, I must be firm, occur again and
again on subsequent days; sometimes they are
the only entry. In these cases they are in an
unusually large hand, and dug into the paper in a
way which must have broken the pen that wrote
them.
