Mary has cried all night and I have packed her off to iron my gowns – they don’t need it, but she needs something to keep her busy. It’s very early in the morning, and after the late night, my fellow guests are still abed. I don’t wish to see them and I am sure they do not wish to see me, for they are no longer my friends.My choices are not attractive: Throwing myself upon the mercy of my sister. I daresay I shall become accustomed to her smugness and the tedium of country life. Her husband’s parishioners would come to love me as I visited them on their sickbeds, forcing unpleasant foodstuffs and piety upon them. At least I would learn the names of my nieces and nephews. Under an assumed name, I could become a governess. Of course this would necessitate the purchase of at least two Quakerish sorts of gowns (which I cannot afford) and an intensive study of everything I have forgotten from my own rather haphazard education. Setting myself up in a genteel, impoverished sort of way doing embroidery, making silk flowers and painting china and so on.