like you to spend all your time with the Warths;
they're really not our sort and R. is not a fit
companion for you; now that you are going to the high
school you are not a little girl any longer. Promise
me that you'll not be eternally with the Warths.--All
right, Mother, I will break it off gradually so that
nobody will notice. She burst out laughing and kissed
me on both cheeks and promised me to say nothing
to Inspee about the diary for she needn't know everything.
Mother is such a dear. Still 3 hours and
perhaps the pages are still there.

Evening. Thank goodness! In front of the shelter
I found 2 pages all pulped by the rain and the writing
all run and one page was in the footpath quite torn.
Someone must have trodden on it with the heel of
his boot and 2 pages had been rolled into a spill and
partly burned. So no one had read anything. I am
so happy. And at supper Father said: I say, why
are your eyes shining with delight? Have you won
the big prize in the lottery? and I pressed Mother's
foot with mine to remind her not to give me away
and Father laughed like anything and said: Seems
to me there's a conspiracy against me in my own
house. And I said in a great hurry: Luckily we're
not in our own house but in a hotel, and everyone
laughed and now thank goodness it's all over. Live
and learn. I won't let that happen again.

August 31st. Really I'm not so much with the W's
and with R. I think he's offended. This afternoon,
when I went there to tea, he seized me by the wrist
and said: Your father is right, you're a witch. "You
need a castigation." How rude of him. Besides, I
didn't know what castigation meant. I asked Father
and he told me and asked where I had picked up the
word. I said I had passed 2 gentlemen and had heard
one of them use it. What I really thought was that
castigation meant tickling. But it is really horrid to
have no one to talk to. Most of the people have gone
already and we have only a week longer. About that
castigation business. I don't like fibbing to Father,
but I really had to. I couldn't say that R. wanted to
give me a castigation when I didn't know what it
meant. Dora tells a lot more lies than I do and I
always love catching her in a lie for her lies are so
obvious. I'm never caught. It only happened once
when Frau Oberst von Stary was there. Father
noticed that time, for he said: You little rogue, you
tarradiddler!

September 3rd. Such a horrid thing has happened.
I shall never speak to R. again. Oswald is quite
right in calling him a cad. If I had really fallen out
of the swing I might have broken my leg 4 days before
we have to start from home. I can't make out how
it all happened. It was frightful cheek of him to
tickle me as he did, and I gave him such a kick. I
think it was on his nose or his mouth. Then he
actually dared to say: After all I'm well paid out,
for what can one expect when one keeps company
with such young monkeys, with such babies. Fine
talk from him when he's not 14 himself yet. It was
all humbug about his being 15 and he seems to be
one of the idlest boys in the school, never anything
but Satisfactory in his reports, and he's not in the
fifth yet, but only in the fourth. Anyhow, we've
settled our accounts. Cheeky devil. I shall never
tell anyone about it, it will be my first and I hope
my last secret from Hella.

September 6th. We are going home to-morrow.
The last few days have been awfully dull. I saw
R. once or twice but I always looked the other way.
Father asked what was wrong between me and the
Warths and R., so that our great friendship had been
broken off. Of course I had to fib, for it was absolutely
_impossible_ to tell the truth. I said that R. found
fault with everything I did, my writing, my reading
aloud. (That's quite true, he did that once) and
Father said: Well, well, you'll make it up when you
say goodbye to-morrow. Father makes a great mistake.
I'll never speak a word to him again.

For her birthday, although it's not come yet, Dora
is to have a navy blue silk dustcloak. I don't think
the colour suits her, and anyhow she's much too thin
to wear a dustcloak.

September 14th. Hella came back the day before
yesterday. She looks splendid and she says I do
too. I'm so glad that she's back. After all I told her
about R. She was very angry and said I ought to
have given him 2 more; one for the tickling and
one for the "baby" and one for the "young monkey."
If we should happen to meet him, shan't we just glare
at him.

September 17th. Inspee has really got the silk
dustcloak but I think the tartan hood looks rather