snow, with full moonlight glistening on it. Instead of that, it was raining and everything smelled damp and drippy. I like things to seem appropriate, but somehow they never seem to be,--at least, not the way you read about them in books.

While I was looking out, I happened to glance over at Louis's house and saw such a queer thing. Way up in one of the little attic-windows there was a light. After a moment I made out that it was from an oil-lamp that some one was carrying about, for it didn't remain steady long at a time. I hated to be spying on our neighbors, but I couldn't have taken my eyes away from that sight if I'd been offered a thousand dollars. It was too uncanny. In another moment I discovered that it was Miss Yvonne moving slowly about in front of the immense chimney that is opposite the window, feeling carefully of every brick and picking at them with her fingers, as if to learn if any were loose. It seemed the strangest thing to be doing at midnight on New Year's Eve, but all of a sudden it dawned on me that she must be trying to discover if any brick was loose because--something might be hidden behind it!

I got so excited about it that I could hardly stand still. But the next minute the light disappeared, and I realized that she had given up the search and gone downstairs. Whether she found what she was looking for or not, I don't know. Probably she didn't, or she would have stayed longer.

After that I shut my window, lit my light, and now am finishing this. I wonder if Carol saw what I did? She was going to look out of her window at midnight, too. But she couldn't have seen it, I'm sure, because her house is on the other side of Louis's, and that attic-window wouldn't have been visible to her. My, won't I have something exciting to tell her to-morrow!

Mother has just opened her door and called out "Happy New Year!" to me. She told me to put out my light and go to bed, or I'd fall asleep at Anita Brown's party to-morrow night--no, I mean to-night. I guess I'll have to end this for the present, but I don't believe I'll be able to sleep. Life is certainly growing more and more exciting, with your neighbors receiving mysterious cablegrams from abroad and digging in the cellar and hunting about in the attic at midnight and all the other curious doings. I hope it doesn't seem like prying into their affairs to have discovered all these things. Each time it was quite by accident. But Mother and Father have always taught us how horrid it was to be curious about your neighbors. Well, as long as I don't deliberately pry or talk about it to any one 

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