Hil, I have no life either... just me and a bottle of wine.

I don't even have the wine. Just soy milk, and the creepiest book ever.

Her father's friend, the one she later marries, is visiting at Christmas. When he arrives, he picks her up and kisses her on the cheek.

"'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!' little Elsie," he said, kissing her on both cheeks. "Now I have caught you figuratively and literally, my little lady, so what are you going to give me, eh?"

"Indeed, sir, I think you've helped yourself to the only thing I have to give at present," she answered with a merry silvery laugh.

"Nay, _give_ me one, little lady," said he, "one such hug and kiss as I dare say your father gets half-a-dozen times in a day."

She gave it very heartily.

"Ah! I wish you were ten years older," he said as he set her down.

"If I had been, you wouldn't have got the kiss," she replied, smiling archly.

"archly"?

creepy indeed

Is it better to drink alone at home or at a bar? Seems to be my holy grail question

I'm also really having trouble figuring out the money in this book. I'm used to things in old books seeming absurdly cheap, but the amounts that people are paying for things here seem like just as much as we'd pay now, if not more.

Some foods that were once very expensive eventually became cheaper, and then rose in price with normal inflation.

What kinds of items caught your attention?

Actually, it was the allowances that first caught my attention. The kids -- eight-year-old kids, who live in a semi-rural area where going into town, where the stores are, is a special treat -- are getting ten dollars a month. Elsie spent close to a hundred dollars on Christmas presents.

Again, it sounds pornarrific.

"'A merry Christmas and a happy New Year!' little Elsie," he said, kissing her on both cheeks. "Now I have caught you figuratively and literally, my little lady, so what are you going to give me, eh?"

come on!

Huh? I got to the end of the book, and it totally ends in the middle of the story! Elsie is worried that her father doesn't love Jesus yet, and she's worried that he might be marrying a woman she really doesn't like. The Jesus thing isn't resolved. The reader knows that her father isn't going to marry that woman, but for Elsie, the book ends with her crying herself to sleep.

It looks like the second book starts the next morning. I'm not sure I have the strength to go through another one of these.

According to one source on the Internet, Elsie Dinsmore was written by the author to support herself after an accident.

In 1867 it was the second best selling juvenile, behind Little Women.

In 1867 it was the second best selling juvenile, behind Little Women.

Which is also a book about girls, with something of a religious message, and light years ahead of Elsie in terms of any sort of measure of quality, or even propriety. Little Women? Not creepy. The March girls were self-sufficient, they helped other people, and they had actual personalities. (By the third sequel, Jo's Boys, the moralizing had gotten to be a bit much, but still nowhere near this.)