I was pretty sure she didn't like my clothes, either. I've since found out she didn't—but more of that anon. (I just love that word "anon.") And I just knew she disapproved of my hat. But she didn't say anything—not in words—and after we'd attended to my trunk, we went along to the carriage and got in.
My stars! I didn't suppose horses could go so slow. Why, we were ages just going a block. You see I'd forgotten; and without thinking I spoke right out.
"My! Horses are slow, aren't they?" I cried. "You see, Grandpa has an auto, and—"
"Mary!"—just like that she interrupted—Aunt Jane did. (Funny how old folks can do what they won't let you do. Now if I'd interrupted anybody like that!) "You may as well understand at once," went on Aunt Jane, "that we are not interested in your grandfather's auto, or his house, or anything that is his." (I felt as if I was hearing the catechism in church!) "And that the less reference you make to your life in Boston, the better we shall be pleased. As I said before, we are not interested. Besides, while under your father's roof, it would seem to me very poor taste, indeed, for you to make constant reference to things you may have been doing while not under his roof. The situation is deplorable enough, however you take it, without making it positively unbearable. You will remember, Mary?"
Mary said, "Yes, Aunt Jane," very polite and proper; but I can tell you that inside of Mary, Marie was just boiling.
Unbearable, indeed!
We didn't say anything more all the way home. Naturally, I was not going to, after that speech; and Aunt Jane said nothing. So silence reigned supreme.
Then we got home. Things looked quite natural, only there was a new maid in the kitchen, and Nurse Sarah wasn't there. Father wasn't there, either. And, just as I suspected, 't was a star that was to blame, only this time the star was the moon—an eclipse; and he'd gone somewhere out West so he could see it better.
He isn't coming back till next week; and when I think how he made me come on the first day, so as to get in the whole six months, when all the time he did not care enough about it to be here himself, I'm just mad—I mean, the righteously indignant kind of mad—for I can't help thinking how poor Mother would have loved those extra days with her.
Aunt Jane said I was to have my old room, and so, as soon as I got here, I went right up and took off my hat and coat, and pretty quick they brought up my trunk, and I unpacked it; and I didn't hurry about it either. I wasn't a bit anxious to get downstairs again to Aunt Jane. Besides, I may as well own up, I was crying—a little. Mother's room was right across the hall, and it looked so lonesome; and I couldn't help remembering how different this homecoming was from the one in Boston, six months ago.