Towards the end of
the Christmas vacation.
Exact date unknown

Dear Daddy-Long-Legs,

Is it snowing where you are? All the world that I see from my tower
is draped in white and the flakes are coming down as big as pop-corns.
It\'s late afternoon--the sun is just setting (a cold yellow colour)
behind some colder violet hills, and I am up in my window seat
using the last light to write to you.

Your five gold pieces were a surprise! I\'m not used to receiving
Christmas presents. You have already given me such lots of things--
everything I have, you know--that I don\'t quite feel that I
deserve extras. But I like them just the same. Do you want to know
what I bought with my money?

I. A silver watch in a leather case to wear on my wrist and get me
to recitations in time.

II. Matthew Arnold\'s poems.

III. A hot water bottle.

IV. A steamer rug. (My tower is cold.)

V. Five hundred sheets of yellow manuscript paper. (I\'m going
to commence being an author pretty soon.)

VI. A dictionary of synonyms. (To enlarge the author\'s vocabulary.)

VII. (I don\'t much like to confess this last item, but I will.)
A pair of silk stockings.

And now, Daddy, never say I don\'t tell all!

It was a very low motive, if you must know it, that prompted the
silk stockings. Julia Pendleton comes into my room to do geometry,
and she sits cross-legged on the couch and wears silk stockings
every night. But just wait--as soon as she gets back from vacation
I shall go in and sit on her couch in my silk stockings. You see,
Daddy, the miserable creature that I am but at least I\'m honest;
and you knew already, from my asylum record, that I wasn\'t perfect,
didn\'t you?

To recapitulate (that\'s the way the English instructor begins every
other sentence), I am very much obliged for my seven presents.
I\'m pretending to myself that they came in a box from my family
in California. The watch is from father, the rug from mother,
the hot water bottle from grandmother who is always worrying for fear
I shall catch cold in this climate--and the yellow paper from my
little brother Harry. My sister Isabel gave me the silk stockings,
and Aunt Susan the Matthew Arnold poems; Uncle Harry (little Harry is
named after him) gave me the dictionary. He wanted to send chocolates,
but I insisted on synonyms.

You don\'t object, do you, to playing the part of a composite family?

And now, shall I tell you about my vacation, or are you only interested
in my education as such? I hope you appreciate the delicate shade
of meaning in `as such\'. It is the latest addition to my vocabulary.

The girl from Texas is named Leonora Fenton. (Almost as funny
as Jerusha, isn\'t it?) I like her, but not so much as Sallie McBride;
I shall never like any one so much as Sallie--except you. I must
always like you the best of all, because you\'re my whole family
rolled into one. Leonora and I and two Sophomores have walked \'cross