in my chosen solitude, while others were enjoying themselves
together.

In the middle of the afternoon, they all went out to walk. When
Jeannie came up for her bonnet, she ran to my closet, and called out
to me, "Dear Alice! mother told me not to come to you at dinner
time; but we can't be happy without you. Jane says she can't play
without you. Can't you come down? Do, Alice." "No," I replied. "Say
nothing about me. I shall not see Jane to-day." After Jeannie left
me, I could not quite keep the tears from my eyes. Pretty soon, my
dear mother, who always thought people must suffer from hunger, came
to me and brought me a nice piece of pudding she had saved for me,
and said kindly to me, "Come, Alice, you have punished yourself
enough; eat this pudding and come down stairs. You will not be so
passionate again." I would not go down, but I ate the pudding. When
our friends were all gone, I went down, and then I told Willie I was
sorry for striking him. Whether it was that my partiality to Jane,
which caused what I suffered that day to make a peculiarly deep
impression on my mind, I know not; but, from that time, I acquired
more self-command; and never did I forget that day in my closet.

I could tell you much more about my closet experiences, Frank, of
what I have enjoyed and what I have suffered in it. There I went
when my heart was too full of pain or pleasure to bear the eye of
another. There have I prayed. There have I sent up thanksgivings.
There have I wept bitter tears. A new page in its history will
commence to-morrow, Frank. I hope, also, a new and fair page in the
history of your mind, that inner, private apartment, on which only
your own eye and the eye of Infinite Purity can rest. Begin to-
morrow to write on that new page the history of conquered