[About precious stones.] ... Green isn't a lucky colour for any Celtic creature to wear, for it is the colour of the Tuatha da Danaan, and the hill folk wear it sparingly. Sapphire is truth, and I am never without it. Ruby is passion, and I need it not. Emerald is hope, and I need it; but cut emeralds are like glass and no better, and a fat round one is hopeless to try and get; and a diamond is strength, and it sparkles and fidgets and is of this world - and amethyst, or as the little stone man I know calls it Hammersmith, is devotion - I have it - and Topaz is jealousy, and is right nasty. Sapphires make my totem of! Prase is a wicked little jewel, have none of him. I gave one to Margaret, and it winked and blinked and looked so evil she put it away. And I got her a moonstone that she might never know love and stay with me. It did no good, but it was wonderful to look at - cold and desolate, and you sighed when you looked at it, as when you looked at the moon - and a black pearl I got her, because "far-fetched and dearly bought is good for ladies," that's pretty on her finger - but of all things I gave her to wear on her little fingers none looked so sweet as a poor cheap bit of ivory, stained so it looked like a cherry, and it makes you laugh with delight at its funny red splash of colour, and it beats all except the sapphire that is crown of stones. ... Amongst the letters this morning was one with such a black border to its envelope - swo black and wide that I dreaded opening it - and it looked as if it must bring news, not of death only, but damnation too - and as it came from France I feared for Rooke and held off from opening it a good hour - and when I did it was from a man I have only seen once in my life, to tell me his aunt was dead. Now I ask you, is that fair? And I didn't know the man had an aunt. Don't you a little bit wish you lived in a little house - and it was all sweet and tiny, and didn't take any thought or waste any time, and we were rather poor - only with pocket-money for books and toys - and no visitors - all friends living in the same street, and the street long and narrow and ending in the city wall, and the wall opening with a gate opening on to cornfields in the south, and the wild wood in the north - and no railways anywhere - all friends and all one's world tied up in the little city - and no news to come - only rumours and gossips at the city gate, telling things a month old, and all wrong. ...