February 5. Mrs. Burke had thirty-one invitations to-day, eleven of
them for her and Mr. Burke. Seven were invitations to little affairs
which Mrs. Tevis would give--well, perhaps five dollars apiece--to
get to. How ridiculous for her to economize in the one way in which
liberality is most necessary. Here they are spending probably a
hundred thousand dollars a season in hopeless attempts to do that which
they would hesitate to pay me six hundred dollars for doing. And this
when they think I could accomplish it. But could I? I guess not. To
win out as I have with the Burkes you've got to have the right sort
of material to work on, and it must be workable. Vulgar people would
be ashamed to put themselves in any one's hands as completely as Mrs.
Burke put herself in my hands.
Oh, I'm sick--sick, sick of it! I'm ashamed to look "ma" Burke in the
face, because I think such mean things about them all when I'm in bed
and blue.
February 6. I decline all the invitations that come for me personally.
I sit in my "office" and pretend to be fussing with my books--they give
me the horrors! And I was so proud of them and of my plans to make my
little enterprise a success.
February 7. Mrs. Burke came in this afternoon and came round my desk
and kissed me. "What is it, dear? What's the matter?" she said. "Won't
you tell _me_? Why, I feel as if you were my daughter. I did have a
daughter. She came first. Tom was so disappointed. But I was glad. A
son belongs to both his parents, and, when he's grown up, to his wife.
But a daughter--she would 'a' belonged to me always. And she had to up
and die just when she was about to make up her mind to talk."