is quite true, for I know well enough that _ihn_ has
an _h_ in it. We were both dressed in white with rose-
coloured ribbons, and everyone believed we were
sisters or at least cousins. It would be very nice to
have a cousin. But it's still nicer to have a friend,
for we can tell one another everything.

July 14th. The mistress was very kind. Because
of her Hella and I are really sorry that we are not
going to a middle school. Then every day before
lessons began we could have had a talk with her in
the class-room. But we're awfully pleased because
of the other girls. One is more important when one
goes to the high school instead of only to the middle
school. That is why the girls are in such a rage.
"They are bursting with pride" (that's what my
sister says of me and Hella, but it is not true). "Our
two students" said the mistress when we came away.
She told us to write to her from the country. I shall.

July 15th. Lizzi, Hella's sister, is not so horrid
as Dora, she is always so nice! To-day she gave
each of us at least ten chocolate-creams. It's true
Hella often says to me: "You don't know her, what
a beast she can be. _Your_ sister is generally very
nice to me." Certainly it is very funny the way in
which she always speaks of us as "the little ones"
or "the children," as if she had never been a child
herself, and indeed a much littler one than we are.
Besides we're just the same as she is now. She is in
the fourth class and we are in the first.

To-morrow we are going to Kaltenbach in Tyrol.
I'm frightfully excited. Hella went away to-day to
Hungary to her uncle and aunt with her mother and
Lizzi. Her father is at manoeuvres.

July 19th. It's awfully hard to write every day
in the holidays. Everything is so new and one has
no time to write. We are living in a big house in
the forest. Dora bagged the front veranda straight
off for her own writing. At the back of the house
there are such swarms of horrid little flies; everything
is black with flies. I do hate flies and such
things. I'm not going to put up with being driven
out of the front veranda. I won't have it. Besides,
Father said: "Don't quarrel, children!" (_Children_
to _her_ too! !) He's quite right. She puts on such
airs because she'll be fourteen in October. "The
verandas are common property," said Father.
Father's always so just. He never lets Dora lord
it over me, but Mother often makes a favourite of
Dora. I'm writing to Hella to-day. She's not written
to me yet.

July 21st. Hella has written to me, 4 pages, and
such a jolly letter. I don't know what I should do
without her! Perhaps she will come here in August
or perhaps I shall go to stay with her. I think I
would rather go to stay with her. I like paying long
visits. Father said: "We'll see," and that means
he'll let me go. When Father and Mother say We'll
see it really means Yes; but they won't say "yes"
so that if it does not come off one can't say that they
haven't kept their word. Father really lets me do
anything I like, but not Mother. Still, if I practice
my piano regularly perhaps she'll let me go. I must
go for a walk.

July 22nd. Hella wrote that I positively must
write every day, for one must keep a promise and we
swore to write every day. I. . . .

July 23rd. It's awful. One has no time. Yesterday
when I wanted to write the room had to be cleaned
and D. was in the arbour. Before that I had not
written a _single_ word and in the front veranda all
my pages blew away. We write on loose pages. Hella
thinks it's better because then one does not have to
tear anything out. But we have promised one another
to throw nothing away and not to tear anything up.
Why should we? One can tell a friend everything.
A pretty friend if one couldn't. Yesterday when I
wanted to go into the arbour Dora glared at me
savagely, saying What do you want? As if the
arbour belonged to her, just as she wanted to bag
the front veranda all for herself. She's too sickening.

Yesterday afternoon we were on the Kolber-Kogel.
It was lovely. Father was awfully jolly and we
pelted one another with pine-cones. It was jolly.
I threw one at Dora and it hit her on her padded bust.
She let out such a yell and I said out loud You couldn't
feel it _there_. As she went by she said Pig! It doesn't
matter, for I know she understood me and that what
I said was true. I should like to know what _she_ writes
about every day to Erika and what she writes
in her diary. Mother was out of sorts and stayed at
home.