* * * * *
One week later.
Father's come. He came yesterday. But I didn't know it, and I came running downstairs, ending with a little bounce for the last step. And there, right in front of me in the hall was—Father.
I guess he was as much surprised as I was. Anyhow, he acted so. He just stood stock-still and stared, his face turning all kinds of colors.
"You?" he gasped, just above his breath. Then suddenly he seemed to remember. "Why, yes, yes, to be sure. You are here, aren't you? How do you do, Mary?"
He came up then and held out his hand, and I thought that was all he was going to do. But after a funny little hesitation he stooped and kissed my forehead. Then he turned and went into the library with very quick steps, and I didn't see him again till at the supper-table.
At the supper-table he said again, "How do you do, Mary?" Then he seemed to forget all about me. At least he didn't say anything more to me; but three or four times, when I glanced up, I found him looking at me. But just as soon as I looked back at him he turned his eyes away and cleared his throat, and began to eat or to talk to Aunt Jane.
After dinner—I mean supper—he went out to the observatory, just as he always used to. Aunt Jane said her head ached and she was going to bed. I said I guessed I would step over to Carrie Heywood's; but Aunt Jane said, certainly not; that I was much too young to be running around nights in the dark. Nights! And it was only seven o'clock, and not dark at all! But of course I couldn't go.
Aunt Jane went upstairs, and I was left alone. I didn't feel a bit like reading; besides, there wasn't a book or a magazine anywhere asking you to read. They just shrieked, "Touch me not!" behind the glass doors in the library. I hate sewing. I mean Marie hates it. Aunt Jane says Mary's got to learn.
For a time I just walked around the different rooms downstairs, looking at the chairs and tables and rugs all just so, as if they 'd been measured with a yardstick. Marie jerked up a shade and pushed a chair crooked and kicked a rug up at one corner; but Mary put them all back properly—so there wasn't any fun in that for long.