"Well, Mary," he began; and his voice sounded odd, with a little shake in it. "You've told me your story, so I suppose I may as well tell you mine—now. You see, I not only got ready for Marie, but I had planned to keep her Marie, and not let her be Mary—at all."
And then he told me. He told me how he'd never forgotten that day in the parlor when I cried (and made a wet spot on the arm of the sofa—I never forgot that!), and he saw then how hard it was for me to live here, with him so absorbed in his work and Aunt Jane so stern in her black dress. And he said I put it very vividly when I talked about being Marie in Boston, and Mary here, and he saw just how it was. And so he thought and thought about it all winter, and wondered what he could do. And after a time it came to him—he'd let me be Marie here; that is, he'd try to make it so I could be Marie. And he was just wondering how he was going to get Aunt Jane to help him when she was sent for and asked to go to an old friend who was sick. And he told her to go, by all means to go. Then he got Cousin Grace to come here. He said he knew Cousin Grace, and he was very sure she would know how to help him to let me stay Marie. So he talked it over with her—how they would let me laugh, and sing and play the piano all I wanted to, and wear the clothes I brought with me, and be just as near as I could be the way I was in Boston.
"And to think, after all my preparation for Marie, you should be
Mary already, when you came," he finished.
"Yes. Wasn't it funny?" I laughed. "All the time you were getting ready for Marie, Mother was getting me ready to be Mary. It was funny!" And it did seem funny to me then.
But Father was not laughing. He had sat back in his chair, and had covered his eyes with his hand again, as if he was thinking and thinking, just as hard as he could. And I suppose it did seem queer to him, that he should be trying to make me Marie, and all the while Mother was trying to make me Mary. And it seemed so to me, as I began to think it over. It wasn't funny at all, any longer.
"And so your mother—did that," Father muttered; and there was the queer little catch in his breath again.
He didn't say any more, not a single word. And after a minute he got up and went into the house. But he didn't go into the library where Mrs. Small and Cousin Grace were talking. He went straight upstairs to his own room and shut the door. I heard it. And he was still there when I went up to bed afterwards.
Well, I guess he doesn't feel any worse than I do. I thought at first it was funny, a good joke—his trying to have me Marie while Mother was making me over into Mary. But I see now that it isn't. It's awful. Why, how am I going to know at all who to be—now? Before, I used to know just when to be Mary, and when to be Marie—Mary with Father, Marie with Mother. Now I don't know at all. Why, they can't even seem to agree on that! I suppose it's just some more of that incompatibility business showing up even when they are apart. And poor me—I have to suffer for it. I'm beginning to see that the child does suffer—I mean the child of unlikes.
Now, look at me right now—about my clothes, for instance. (Of course clothes are a little thing, you may think; but I don't think anything's little that's always with you like clothes are!) Well, here all summer, and even before I came, I've been wearing stuffy gingham and clumpy shoes to please Father. And Father isn't pleased at all. He wanted me to wear the Marie things.
And there you are.