How do you suppose Mother's going to feel when I tell her that after all her pains Father didn't like it at all. He wanted me to be Marie. It's a shame, after all the pains she took. But I won't write it to her, anyway. Maybe I won't have to tell her, unless she asks me.
But I know it. And, pray, what am I to do? Of course, I can act like Marie here all right, if that is what folks want. (I guess I have been doing it a good deal of the time, anyway, for I kept forgetting that I was Mary.) But I can't wear Marie, for I haven't a single Marie thing here. They're all Mary. That's all I brought.
Oh, dear suz me! Why couldn't Father and Mother have been just the common live-happy-ever-after kind, or else found out before they married that they were unlikes?
* * * * *
September.
Well, vacation is over, and I go back to Boston to-morrow. It's been very nice and I've had a good time, in spite of being so mixed up as to whether I was Mary or Marie. It wasn't so bad as I was afraid it would be. Very soon after Father and I had that talk on the piazza, Cousin Grace took me down to the store and bought me two new white dresses, and the dearest little pair of shoes I ever saw. She said Father wanted me to have them.
And that's all—every single word that's been said about that
Mary-and-Marie business. And even that didn't really say
anything—not by name. And Cousin Grace never mentioned it again. And
Father never mentioned it at all. Not a word.
But he's been queer. He's been awfully queer. Some days he's been just as he was when I first came this time—real talky and folksy, and as if he liked to be with us. Then for whole days at a time he'd be more as he used to—stern, and stirring his coffee when there isn't any coffee there; and staying all the evening and half the night out in his observatory.
Some days he's talked a lot with me—asked me questions just as he used to, all about what I did in Boston, and Mother, and the people that came there to see her, and everything. And he spoke of the violinist again, and, of course, this time I told him all about him, and that he didn't come any more, nor Mr. Easterbrook, either; and Father was so interested! Why, it seemed sometimes as if he just couldn't hear enough about things. Then, all of a sudden, at times, he'd get right up in the middle of something I was saying and act as if he was just waiting for me to finish my sentence so he could go. And he did go, just as soon as I had finished my sentence. And after that, maybe, he wouldn't hardly speak to me again for a whole day.
And so that's why I say he's been so queer since that night on the piazza. But most of the time he's been lovely, perfectly lovely. And so has Cousin Grace, And I've had a beautiful time.