Father's been awfully queer this whole week through. I can't make him out at all. Sometimes I think he's glad I told him all those things in the parlor that day I dressed up in Marie's things, and sometimes I think he's sorry and wished I hadn't.
The very next morning he came down to breakfast with such a funny look on his face. He said good-morning to me three times, and all through breakfast he kept looking over at me with a kind of scowl that was not cross at all—just puzzled.
After breakfast he didn't go out to the observatory, not even into the library. He fidgeted around the dining-room till Aunt Jane went out into the kitchen to give her orders to Susie; then he burst out, all of a sudden:
"Well, Mary, what shall we do to-day?" Just like that he said it, as if we'd been doing things together every day of our lives.
"D-do?" I asked; and I know I showed how surprised I was by the way I stammered and flushed up.
"Certainly, do," he answered, impatient and scowling. "What shall we do?"
"Why, Father, I—I don't know," I stammered again.
"Come, come, of course you know!" he cried. "You know what you want to do, don't you?"
I shook my head. I was so astonished I couldn't even think. And when you can't think you certainly can't talk.
"Nonsense, Mary," scowled Father again. "Of course you know what you want to do! What are you in the habit of doing with your young friends—your Carries and Charlies, and all the rest?"