You remember the Irishman's saying that we could be pretty comfortable in life if it wasn't for our pleasures? Well I could get along rather well in Japan were it not for the Merry Christmases. Such a terrible longing seizes me for my loved ones and for God's country that I feel like a needle near a magnet. But next Christmas! I just go right up in the air when I think about it.

This school of life is a difficult one at best, but when a weak sister like myself is put about three grades higher than she belongs, it is more than hard. I don't care a rap for the struggle and the heart aches, if I have only made good. When I came out there were two kindergartens, now there are nine besides a big training class. Anybody else could have done as much for the work but one thing is certain, the work couldn't have done for anyone else what it has done for me. Outwardly I am the same feather-weight as of old, but there is a big change inside, Mate, you'll have to take my word for it. I am coming to take the slaps of Fate very much as I used to take the curling of my hair with a hot iron, it pulled and sometimes burned, but I didn't care so long as it was going to improve my looks. So now I use my crosses as sort of curling irons for my character.

Your sudden decision to give up your trip to Europe this spring set me guessing! I can't imagine, after all your planning and your dreams, what could have changed your mind so completely. You don't seem to care a rap about going. Now look here, Mate, I want a full report. You have turned all the pockets of my confidence inside out. What about yours? Have you been getting an "aim" in life, are you going to be an operatic singer, or a temperance lecturer, or anything like that? You are so horribly high minded that I am prepared for the worst.

I wish it would stop raining. The mountains are hid by a heavy gray mist, and the drip, drip of the rain from roof and trees is not a cheering sound. I am doing my best to keep things bright within, I have built a big fire in my grate, and in my heart I have lighted all the lamps at my little shrines, and I am burning incense to the loves that were and are.

Just after tiffin the rain stopped for a little while and I rushed out for a walk. I had been reading the "Christmas Carol" all morning, and it brought so many memories of home that I was feeling rather wobbly. My walk set me up immensely. A baldheaded, toothless old man stopped me and asked me where I was "coming." When I told him he said that was wonderful and he hoped I would have a good time. A woman with a child on her back ran out and stopped me to ask if I would please let the baby see my hair. Half a dozen children and two dogs followed me all the way, and an old man and woman leaned against a wall and laughed aloud because a foreigner was so funny to look at.

If anyone thinks that he can indulge in a nice private case of the blues while taking a walk in Japan, he deceives himself. I started out feeling like Napoleon at St. Helena, and I came home cheerful and ravenously hungry.

I have been trying to read poetry this winter, but I don't make much progress. The truth is I have gained five pounds, and I am afraid I am getting too fat. I never knew but one fat person to appreciate poetry and he crocheted tidies.

By the way I have learned to knit!! You see there are so many times when I have to play the gracious hostess when I feel like a volcano within, that I decided to get something on which I could vent my restlessness. It is astonishing how much bad temper one can knit into a garment. I don't know yet what mine is going to be, probably an opera bonnet for Susie Damn.