But this didn't end the day. There's worse to come.

It rained so we couldn't play golf, but had to go to gymnasium instead.
The girl next to me banged my elbow with an Indian club. I got
home to find that the box with my new blue spring dress had come,
and the skirt was so tight that I couldn't sit down. Friday is
sweeping day, and the maid had mixed all the papers on my desk.
We had tombstone for dessert (milk and gelatin flavoured with vanilla).
We were kept in chapel twenty minutes later than usual to listen to
a speech about womanly women. And then--just as I was settling down
with a sigh of well-earned relief to The Portrait of a Lady, a girl
named Ackerly, a dough-faced, deadly, unintermittently stupid girl,
who sits next to me in Latin because her name begins with A (I
wish Mrs. Lippett had named me Zabriski), came to ask if Monday's
lesson commenced at paragraph 69 or 70, and stayed ONE HOUR.
She has just gone.

Did you ever hear of such a discouraging series of events?
It isn't the big troubles in life that require character.
Anybody can rise to a crisis and face a crushing tragedy with courage,
but to meet the petty hazards of the day with a laugh--I really
think that requires SPIRIT.

It's the kind of character that I am going to develop. I am
going to pretend that all life is just a game which I must play
as skilfully and fairly as I can. If I lose, I am going to shrug
my shoulders and laugh--also if I win.

Anyway, I am going to be a sport. You will never hear me
complain again, Daddy dear, because Julia wears silk stockings