And I had lost him. I knew it the minute he sighed and frowned and got up from his seat and said, oh, yes, to be sure. He was just Dr. Anderson then—the man who knew all about the stars, and who had been unmarried to Mother, and who called me "Mary" in an of-course-you're-my-daughter tone of voice.
Well, he took my books and heard my lessons, and told me what I was to study next day. He's done that two days now.
Oh, I'm so tired of being Mary! And I've got more than four whole months of it left. I didn't get Mother's letter to-day. Maybe that's why I'm specially lonesome to-night.
* * * * *
July first.
School is done, both the regular school and my school. Not that my school has amounted to much. Really it hasn't. Oh, for three or four days he asked questions quite like just a teacher. Then he got to talking. Sometimes it would be about something in the lessons; sometimes it would be about a star, or the moon. And he'd get so interested that I'd think for a minute that maybe the understanding twinkle would come into his eyes again. But it never did.
Sometimes it wasn't stars and moons, though, that he talked about. It was Boston, and Mother. Yes, he did. He talked a lot about Mother. As I look back at it now, I can see that he did. He asked me all over again what she did, and about the parties and the folks that came to see her. He asked again about Mr. Harlow, and about the concert, and the young man who played the violin, and what was his name, and how old was he, and did I like him. And then, right in the middle of some question, or rather, right in the middle of some answer I was giving him, he would suddenly remember he was hearing my lessons, and he would say, "Come, come, Mary, what has this to do with your lessons?"
Just as if I was to blame! (But, then, we women always get the blame, I notice.) And then he'd attend strictly to the books for maybe five whole minutes—before he asked another question about that party, or the violinist.
Naturally the lessons haven't amounted to much, as you can imagine.
But the term was nearly finished, anyway; and my real school is in
Boston, of course.
It's vacation now. I do hope that will amount to something!