I am the tallest of all our boarders, and it really pleases me exceedingly to find that my waist is not quite a half yard round.

Summer has come, the fine weather has returned, but I cannot go out—­a privation which is really quite vexatious.  Ah! how I wish I were a little bird!  I would fly away, far away—­and then I would return to my cage.

But my days and my nights must all be spent in this dull house and in this ugly street; I believe that Cooper street (ulika Bednarska) is the darkest, dingiest, and dirtiest street in Warsaw.  God willing, next year I shall be no longer here.

Friday, July 28th.

Labor has at least the good quality of making the time pass more rapidly; our days vanish one by one, without distractions or news from without.

I just now felt a desire to write in my journal, and when I consulted the almanac to find out the day of the month, I was quite surprised to find that seven whole weeks had passed since I had written a single word in my poor diary.

This day certainly deserves to be noted down, for never since I was born did such a thing happen to me as I experienced this morning.  I received a letter by the mail, and the world is no longer ignorant that the Countess Frances Krasinska is now living in Warsaw!  I danced with joy when I saw my letter, my own letter!  It came from her ladyship, the Starostine Swidzinska; I shall keep it as a precious and delightful remembrance.  My sister writes to me that she is quite well, and happy beyond all I can imagine; she was kind enough to send me four gold ducats, which she has saved from her own private purse.

For the first time in my life I have money to spend as I will, which gives me great pleasure.  With the money came the desire to spend, and a variety of projects; it seemed to me as if I could buy the whole city.

Thanks to my parents, I need nothing, and I will buy nothing for myself; but I would have liked to leave a pretty remembrance to each of my companions, a gold ring, for example; but madame quite distressed me by telling me that my four ducats would only buy four rings-a real affliction to me, who had hope to purchase, besides the rings, a blonde mantle for Madame Strumle herself....  All my projects are overturned; I have learned that the mantle will cost at least a hundred ducats, and have thence determined to give one ducat to the parish church, to have a mass said in the chapel of Jesus to draw the blessing of Heaven upon the affairs now occupying my parents, and for the continuation of the happiness of her ladyship the starostine.  I will have another ducat changed into small coin, to be distributed among all the servants in the house; there will still remain two ducats, which will buy a charming collation for my companions on Sunday next.  We will have coffee, an excellent beverage, which we never see here, cakes, and fruit.  Madame Strumle willingly consented to this last project.