Her memory books were great fat volumes kept on a shelf by themselves,
and forming a record of everything that had happened to her since her
first day at boarding school. They were in no sense diaries, nor could
they be called scrap-books. They had, rather, been compiled with an
eye to certain red-letter events--and their bulkiness had been enhanced
by the insertion between the leaves of various objects not intended for
such limited space. There was a mask which she had worn at Hallowe'en;
the tulle which had tied her roses at graduation; a little silver ring
marking a childish romance; a flattened and much-dried chocolate drop
with tender associations; dance-favors, clippings, photographs, theater
programs, each illumined and emphasized by a line or two of sentiment
or of nonsense in Jean's girlish scrawl.
Even now, as she turned the leaves, she found herself laughing over a
rhyme which her father had cut from his daily paper, and had sent in
response to her wild plea for a box of something good to eat:
"Mary had a little lamb,
A little pork, a little jam,
A little egg on toast,
A little potted roast,
A little stew with dumplings white,
A little shad,
For Mary had,
A little appetite.
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