New Orleans, August, 1863.
Friday, 14th.
DOOMED to be bored! To-night Miriam drags me to a soirée musicale, and in the midst of my toilet, I sit down with bare shoulders to scratch a dozen lines in my new treasure which has been by me for three days, untouched. I don’t know what tempts me to do it except perversity; for I have nothing to say.
I was in hopes that I would never have occasion to refer to the disagreeable subject that occupied the last pages of my old journal, but the hope proves fallacious, and wherever I turn, the same subject is renewed. So there is no longer any reason in waiting until all mention can be avoided. Yesterday a little, sly, snaky creature asked me if I knew “the Hero of Port Hudson.” “Yes,” I said briefly. “Unmistakable! I see it in your face!” she remarked. “See what?” “That you betray yourself. Do you know that every one believes that you are engaged to him?” In surprise I said no; such a thing had never been mentioned before me until then. “Well! they say so, and add, too, that you are to be married as soon as the war is over.” “’They’ are paying me an undeserved compliment,” I returned. Where could such a report have originated? Not certainly from him, and not, most assuredly, from me. Where does Dame rumor spring from? He is a stranger here, and I have never mentioned his name except to the Peirces, who would no more report such a thing than I would myself. I won’t mind it if it does not reach his ears; but what assurance have I that it will not? That would be unpleasant! Why can’t “they say” let everybody settle their own affairs?
Here comes Miriam after me! What a bore! What a bore! And she looks as though it was a pleasure to go out! How I hate it!
Glancing up the page, the date strikes my eye. What tempted me to begin it Friday? My dear Ada would shiver and declare the blank pages were reserved for some very painful, awful, uncomfortable record, or that “something” would happen before the end of it. Nothing very exciting can happen, except the restoration of peace; and to bring that about, I would make a vow to write only on Fridays.
