The Heart of Una Sackville

It is rather jolly having a house full of people; and father and mother and Vere are so clever at entertaining. There is never any fuss nor effort, and people are allowed to go...

_August 16th_. We used to wonder at school sometimes how we should behave if we suddenly found ourselves in a position of great danger. I always said I should scream and hide my...

_September 20th_. I expected Vere to be quite different after this--to give up being cold and defiant, and be her own old self. I thought it was a kind of crisis, and that she w...

It is ten days since I wrote anything in this diary, and to-night, when I opened it in my misery, hoping to find some comfort in writing down my thoughts, the first thing that m...

_August 17th_. I was wheeled into the library every day, and lay in state upon the sofa, receiving callers. Mother drove over each afternoon for a short visit. Will came in ofte...

_October 4th_. Here I am! It is not a bit as I imagined, but ever so much nicer. Lorna looks sweet in grown-up things, and she thinks I look sweet in mine. She comes into my bed...

About the middle of September Will went away to pay a visit to his uncle. He called to say good-bye when he knew I was out, so we did not meet again, and no one had any idea of...

_January 20th_. Mrs Greaves and Rachel came home after the New Year and set to work at once to break up the old home. All the furniture is to be sold by auction, and the house i...

_June 20th_. I've been home a month. I've got tails to my dresses and silk linings, and my hair done up like the people in advertisements, and parasols with frills, and a pearl...

_July 10th_. To-day I went a round of calls with mother, driving round the country for over twenty miles. It was rather dull in one way and interesting in another, for I do like...

_August 16th_. They picked her up, poor Vere! the man who loved her, and the servants who had known her since she was a child; picked her up and laid her on a board which did du...

_June 15th._ To-day the first roses have opened in the garden, the rose-garden at the Moat; for we came home two months ago, and are still luxuriating in the old haunts and the...

_August 20th_. It is lovely to be able to go out again into the sweet summer land, and drive about with father and mother, and have our nice, homely talks again. The Greaves' ar...

_September 5th_. Four days later we left the Grange and came to our new home, a furnished house four miles away. It is a big, square, prosaic-looking building, but comfortable,...

We were very silent driving home in the brougham, and I refused to go into Lorna's room, as I always did before going to bed, saying that I was too tired to talk. She looked anx...

_August 15th_. It is three weeks since the moonlight picnic, and so many things have happened since then, such awful, terrible things, that I don't know how to begin to tell the...

_September 6th, 11 PM._ Here I am back in my own room; at least, I suppose it is me. I have been staring at myself in the glass, and I look much the same. No one who didn't know...

_September 23rd_. The next morning we went to a paperhanger's shop and asked to see the very newest and most artistic designs in stock. There were lots of lovely things, but aft...

_July 15th_. I was not in the least interested to know anything about what Will Dudley and Rachel Greaves talked about together, but I was anxious to find out if she had said an...

Bed-time; my own room. May 14th. It is different from school! My room is simply sweet, all newly done up as a surprise for me on my return. White paint and blue walls, and littl...

_August 12th._ It is a long time since I opened this diary, for I have grown out of the habit of writing, and it is difficult to get into it again.

_September 5th._ Every day Vere seems to improve. It is simply wonderful how she has bounded ahead after the first start. Hope and happiness have a great deal to do with it, the...

_May 13th, 1895_. Lena Streatham gave me this diary. I can't think what possessed her, for she has been simply hateful to me sometimes this last term. Perhaps it was remorse, be...

_January 1st._ I must begin to write again in my poor, neglected diary, for things are happening so fast that if I do not keep a record of them as they pass I shall forget half...

I have told all our experiences in papering the room together, because they seemed to come better that way; but, of course, lots of other things have been happening at the same...

"Will told you! Will told you himself!" she repeated, and stared at me in a puzzled, curious fashion, as if she wondered why on earth he should have chosen to make a confidante...