I would say my favourite holiday is Christmas – though perhaps that is because my birthday is on the sixteenth of December, and so the whole month feels like one grand occasion to me. But Christmas has so many fun fancies that I like – gingerbread and garlands! And sprigs of mistletoe – perhaps you should charm a sprig to follow your sister around this year. I’m sure a season of that would undo anyone’s shyness, and maybe even find her a cure to spinsterdom.

I like gifts too, of course. I need something to look forward to, for my only news is gloomy and irksome – to me. You may be amused, if you like. But there is a young lady my age against whom I have been set for years: we have all the same skills and interests and perhaps the same vices. Of course I try not to let her get the better of me – I try for success on its own terms – but it is quite exasperating when she has anything to hold over me. She has become an animagus recently, and delights in showing off. I have never cared so much about becoming an animal (our families differ there: hers all seem to delight in playacting as them, where my father prefers to study them), but I am quite put out that she should have achieved something so adventurous.

So I must put my mind to some equally impressive and dangerous achievement now – different, to be sure, but better, and preferably more fun than endless study. Any ideas are welcome.

But never mind: of course your letters bring me a great deal of pleasure. I was so looking forward to finally sitting down to write this morning that I began penning this before I had even finished getting ready, and now I have ink stains on my chemise and no inclination to get dressed at all.

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