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This is considerable; quite enough to make a man reflect and vacillate, unless he is so deeply in love already that no temptation is strong enough to assail him.

Richard Morton, I know, likes to dance with me, sing with me, golf with me, talk with me, consult with me about his affairs, write letters to me; and more than that, he doesn’t like to have other men usurp these privileges; but I am not prepared to say that he would pine away if circumstances removed me altogether from his path. At any rate, these perplexities have been too much for my peace of mind, and when Richard Morton announced that he had business which would keep him in Philadelphia for a month I began to feel physically ill and unable to bear Cousin Sarah’s sympathy, her curiosity, even at last her proximity. When the doctor advised my coming here to this quiet, restful place I eagerly embraced the opportunity simply because I could be alone, and because I need not meet Richard until he had enjoyed a full month of Amy Darling’s society, either succumbing to its fascination or resisting it, as the case might be.

Would it be nobler of me to give him up before he is really mine, knowing that in this way I am advancing his worldly interests? This is the question that I hope solitude will help me to answer, but its complications and side-issues are so many that I feel dazed by their number and their difficulty. I went to sleep last night echoing the old negro’s prayer: “Thou knowest what’s about right, Lord. Now do it!”

* * * * *

Tuesday

8 A.M.–Nurse gives me an alcohol bath.

8.30–She takes my pulse and temperature and enters them in the Bedside Record Book, afterwards reading me my diet-list. It seems I do not belong to the favored class, which, to be cured, is stuffed with pleasant things to eat; my symptoms demand a simple, unexciting bill of fare.

9 o’clock–Breakfast.

Fruit in season.

(This is its only name, but everybody knows it by sight.)

Poweretta Grits with Cream.
Graham Muffins.
Wheatoata Process Coffee.

10.30–Hot fomentations.

11.15–Drop of blood extracted from ear and subjected to examination.

11.30–Glass of Certified Milk.

12–Visit from physician.

1–Dinner.

Barley Broth.
Lamb Chop–Hominy or Rice.
Bread-and-butter Pudding
Custard Sauce.

2 to 3–Silent hour.

3.30–Static electricity.

4.15–Weight taken.

4.30–Cold pack.

5–Cup of Predigested Maltese Milk.

5.30–Visit from head nurse.

6.30–Supper.

Cornetta Mush.
Poached Egg on Whole-Wheat Toast.
Sterilized Stewed Apples–Zephyrettes.
Cup of Somnolina.
(A beverage from which everything pleasant and
harmful has been extracted by a beneficent process.)

7.30–Miss Blossom, the nurse, insists on reading to me.
It is not a good performance but it doesn’t matter. I
know that Dick and Amy Darling are just starting for the theater.

8.30–Tepid sponge bath.

9–Massage.

9.30–Glass of peptonized water.

9.45–Temperature and pulse taken.

10–Lights out.

Never in all my twenty-five years of life have I passed a busier or more exhausting day.

* * * * *

Wednesday

Precisely like Tuesday save for some new experiences in diet. There was a mild process-drink called Cocoatina; Teaette also made its appearance. There were dolls’ mattresses of shredded excelsior moistened with milk; nut salad, and Grahamata mush. I could never have supposed so many new cereals could be invented.

There is mush in the evening, mush in the morning,
Mush when it’s looked for and mush without warning.

It is rather like the immortal “Charge of the Light Brigade”:

Oats to the right of them,
Corn to the left of them,
Wheat to the north of them,
Grits to the south of them,
Into the Valley of Mush rode the two hundred.

* * * * *

Thursday

I was allowed to sit on my balcony for an hour this morning. This would have been a pleasant change had I not heartily disliked at first sight my next-door neighbor who was sitting on the adjoining balcony. At noon she sent me a bunch of pansies and her card: Mrs. Grosvenor Chittenden-Ffollette.