And two days after Christmas，they gave a dance at their own house for me.
It was the first really true ball I ever attended-college doesn't count where we dance with girls.I had a new white evening gown（your Christmas present-many thanks）and long white gloves and white satin slippers.The only drawback to my perfect，utter，absolute happiness was the fact that Mrs.Lippett couldn't see me leading the cotillion with Jimmie McBride.Tell her about it，please，the next time you visit the J.G.H.
Yours ever，
Judy Abbott
PS.Would you be terribly displeased，Daddy，if I didn't turn out to be a great author after all，but just a plain girl？
6:30，Saturday
Dear Daddy，
We started to walk to town today，but mercy！how it poured.I like winter to be winter with snow instead of rain.
Julia's desirable uncle called again this afternoon-and brought a five-pound box of chocolates.There are advantages you see about rooming with Julia.
Our innocent prattle appeared to amuse him and he waited over a train in order to take tea in the study.And an awful lot of trouble we had getting permission.It's hard enough entertaining fathers and grandfathers，but uncles are a step worse；and as for brothers and cousins，they are next to impossible.Julia had to swear that he was her uncle before a notary public and then have the county clerk's certificate attached.（Don't I know a lot of law？）And even then I doubt if we could have had our tea if the dean had chanced to see how youngish and good-looking Uncle Jervis is.
Anyway，we had it，with brown bread Swiss cheese sandwiches.He helped make them and then ate four.I told him that I had spent last summer at Lock Willow，and we had a beautiful gossipy time about the Semples，and the horses and cows and chickens.All the horses that he used to know are dead，except Grover，who was a baby colt at the time of his last visit-and poor Grove now is so old he can just limp about the pasture.
He asked if they still kept doughnuts in a yellow crock with a blue plate over it on the bottom shelf of the pantry-and they do！He wanted to know if there was still a woodchuck's hole under the pile of rocks in the night pasture-and there is！Amasai caught a big，fat，gray one there this summer，the twenty-fifth great-grandson of the one Master Jervie caught when he was a little boy.