“Fine cold day. Aunt H. gave me a new umbrella & some chocolate. W. Waring sent me a little round photo frame, but the glass arrived cracked, J. Webb sent me a queer little tiny pen in a case, Aunt Maggie some lovely handkerchiefs, Aunt Bessie a handkerchief, Helen a cobwebly little handkerchief case. T. & D. a fine big muffler of the sort that’s going now, & Nancy a very grand Browning calendar. I have Aunt H. The Ship that Sailed too Soon & a photoframe, & Uncle E. green grapes. Ben sent me Darrell Figgis’s Byeways of Study, & I read most of it that morning. The articles on Parnell & H. O’Neill’s terms were very interesting. “
WEEK 64: (23rd – 29th December 1918)
“Tash has her hair up & looks very handsome with it. They talked about men & love, & the ridiculous flirting at Rinn, girls falling in violent temporary love with me etc. Kitty used to lecture them on the folly of it, & how they wd regret it when they met the man they really wanted to marry, & they wd say it was quite true but they couldn’t help it. K. seems totally insensible to masculine charms, & doubts the existence of real love. She asked me wd I think a girl to blame for not caring about a good man who wanted to marry her; I wonder who he is.”
WEEK 12: (17th – 23rd December 1917)
“I went on to the club committee then; it was nearly all about the plebiscite. There have to be articles in the local press to prepare the public’s mind, & handbills distributed; & they say of course Redmond will send orders to all his followers not to sign it.”