"You will not let her go, of course, Charles; but naturally I had to read the letter to you. I will write to Mrs. Anderson to-night."
Father looked up then.
"Yes," he said quietly; "and you may tell her, please, that Mary will go."
"Charles!"
Aunt Jane said that. But I—I almost ran around the table and hugged him. (Oh, how I wish he was the kind of a father you could do that to!)
"Charles!" said Aunt Jane again. "Surely you aren't going to give in so tamely as this to that child and her mother!"
"I'm not giving in at all, Jane," said Father, very quietly again. "I am consulting my own wishes in the matter. I prefer to have her go."
I 'most cried out then. Some way, it hurt to have him say it like that, right out—that he wanted me to go. You see, I'd begun to think he was getting so he didn't mind so very much having me here. All the last two weeks he'd been different, really different. But more of that anon. I'll go on with what happened at the table. And, as I said, I did feel bad to have him speak like that. And I can remember now just how the lump came right up in my throat.
Then Aunt Jane spoke, stiff and dignified.
"Oh, very well, of course, if you put it that way. I can quite well understand that you would want her to go—for your sake. But I thought that, under the circumstances, you would manage somehow to put up with the noise and—"