ceased liking me as well as they did. Cousin
Jane, for instance: she sneers at me
continually. I do hope I shall not grow
suspicious: I have often heard of people with
money thinking they were not loved for
themselves, and I should not like it to be my own
case—-but as little should I approve of being
envied lor it. Nobody knows, and I suppose
nobody ever will know, for I am not going to
prate about what I cannot do—-how much
better pleased and how much happier I
should have been, if Uncle Robert had
divided his property among the three of us,
instead of leaving it all to me. Grannie
says my mother was always his pet, but she
evidently thinks that Ferndell ought to have
been Cousin Henry's, so that it might have
been kept in the name of Favell instead of
passing to the Clare's—to be sure, it was not
family property: Uncle Robert earned it for
himself; and had, therefore, an indisputable
right to bequeath it as he would, but his will
has not given satisfaction to any of us—-not
even to me, his heiress.

I should like to know what made him pass
over Cousin Henry and Cousin Jane. If I
might hazard such a thought, I could almost
fancy that Grannie loved Uncle Robert less
than her other children. He never came
amongst us here, and except for the present
he sent to me at Christmas, I never should
have known I had such a relative.
Cousin Jane does not talk of him as if she
had ever seen him, but only says that she
understood he was a shy, reserved man, who
led, from choice, an extremely secluded life.
I don't like to ask Grannie, for she never
mentions him first.

July the sixteenth.—-We have heard of a
pair of beautiful bay ponies, that will just
suit us; Grannie says she shall be able to
drive them herself. They belonged to Lady
Singleton at Deerhill: the carriage is to
come from London, next week: I hope we
shall have one or two drives in it before I go
to school.

Cousin Henry has decided upon the place
to which I am to be sent. It is a Miss
Thoroton's at Stockbridge—-a very excellent
school, he says, where I shall have every
opportunity of becoming what he desires
to see me! O! what does he desire to see
me? A paragon, a peri, a nonpareil! My
firm belief is, that if I am cultivated for a
score years I shall revert to my natural
pleasures and quiet idlenesses the moment
the guard is off. I cannot be always thinking
of what is proper and fitting to be done.

July the seventeenth.—-I have had a long
walk with Mrs. Lake, who told me about
Uncle Robert. He was Grannie's eldest
son, Cousin Henry's father is the second, and
Uncle Tom was the youngest; my mother
was the youngest of all. Uncle Robert made
a low marriage—-that is, our family felt it so
—-and they would not acknowledge his wife,
or see him at Burnbank after: only my
mother wrote him kind letters. Uncle
Robert's wife was very pretty, and Mrs. Lake
says, very good, too, and neither ignorant nor
vulgar; but Grannie would not forgive him,
and his two brothers kept up the estrangement,
instead of trying to heal it. Uncle
Robert loved her devotedly, but he soon lost
her; and when she lay dying, it was my
mother (then unmarried, and quite a girl)
who visited and nursed her. This explains
why he left his property to me, and why
Grannie so very much dislikes to speak of
him. I am glad I know about it, for mysteries
are always in the way.

I am surprised Grannie should have been
so harsh, but it often seems as if the best
people were the most tyrannical in trying to
make others be good and happy exactly after
their fashion. Cousin Jane has that way.
She says to me often,—-" Eleanor, do so and
so, I am sure it is the right way, the only
right way, and it will befal better than if
you followed your own head; "—-and she will
talk and argue until I am fairly beaten down
by an avalanche of words. If I am resolved
to do as I like, there is nothing for it but
running out of hearing, and that I do
sometimes.

Then I had some talk with Mrs. Lake
about myself, and she bids me turn a deaf
ear to all warnings, doubts, and promptings,
and to go straightforward in my own natural
way, just as if the fortune had never come to
me; and I will, if I can. There is one good
thing at school—-there we are all equal,
fortunes or no fortunes—-no, not all equal! I
begin to feel as if I should turn out a fearful
dunce, and rather to dread the beginning.
I don't know why, but I always feel more
awkward in a company of young girls about
my own age than I ever do elsewhere; I
think they quizz and make remarks, and then,
I have such a silly trick of blushing;
however, it has to be, and so my courage must
bear me through as well as it may.

July the twenty-fourth.—-To-day Grannie
and I had our first drive together in the
pony carriage; it was so cosy, so charming,
and will be such an ease and comfort to
Grannie, now that she cannot walk far, but
still finds the fresh air necessary to keep her
in health. We went round by Deerhill, and
the ponies wanted to turn in at the gate.
Poor little things! They remembered their
old home.

The Singletons are quite ruined, and are
gone abroad, we hear. That odious Mary
Jane Curling suggested to me that if they
had stayed at home, young Sir Edward might
have married me—-I should have been my
lady, and my fortune would have restored
Deerhill.

I can scarcely control myself when she
begins to show her teeth, roll her eyes, and
talk in that way. I should like to beat her,
she makes me feel worse than anything or
anybody I ever saw. I dislike her present