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BRANCHES PARK Nove to be an adventuress, because that is evidently what I shall beco nice looking and having nothing to live on, and getting a pleasant time out of life--and I intend to do that! I have certainly nothing to live on, for one cannot count £300 a year; and I am extremely pretty, and I know it quite well, and how to do s--so, of course, I am an adventuress! I was not intended for this rôle--in fact, Mrs Carruthers adopted me on purpose to leave me her fortune, as at that tiet the place Then she was so inconsequent as not to ets everything, and I nothing!

I am twenty, and up to the week before last, when Mrs Carruthers got ill and died in one day, I had had a fairly decent tiood te even when people are dead, if one is writing down one's real thoughts I detested Mrs Carruthers most of the time A person whom it was impossible to please She had no idea of justice, or of anything but her own comfort, and what amount of pleasure other people could contribute to her day

How she ca for me at all was because she had been in love with papa, and when he married poor mamma--a person of no fa me up, just to spite mamma, she has often told me As I was only four I had no say in the ive me up that was her affair Mamma's father was a lord, and her et married, so that is how it is poor mamma came to have no relations After papa was dead, she married an Indian officer and went off to India, and died, too, and I never saw her any more--so there it is; there is not a soul in the world whoan adventuress, and thinking only of myself, can I?

Mrs Carruthers periodically quarrelled with all the neighbors, so beyond frigid calls now and then in a friendly interval, we never saw them much Several old, worldly ladies used to co friends When it is getting dark, and I am up here alone, I often wonder what it would be like if I had--but I believe I aot on with them too nicely--so perhaps it is just as well Only, to have had a pretty--aunt, say--to love one--that ht have been nice