elf, right out plain? And that's what he did.

He'd been up on his feet, tramping up and down the room all the time
I'd been talking; and now, all of a sudden, he wheels around and stops
short.

"How is--your mother, Mary?" he asks. And it was just as if he'd
opened the door to another room, he had such a whole lot of questions
to ask after that. And when he'd finished he knew everything: what
time we got up and went to bed, and what we did all day, and the
parties and dinners and auto rides, and the folks that came such a lot
to see Mother.

Then all of a sudden he stopped--asking questions, I mean. He stopped
just as suddenly as he'd begun. Why, I was right in the middle of
telling about a concert for charity we got up just before I came away,
and how Mother had practiced for days and days with the young man who
played the violin, when all of a sudden Father jerked his watch from
his pocket and said:

"There, there, Mary, it's getting late. You've talked enough--too
much. Now go to bed. Good-night."

Talked too much, indeed! And who'd been making me do all the talking,
I should like to know? But, of course, I couldn't _say_ anything.
That's the unfair part of it. Old folks can say anything, _anything_
they want to to _you_, but you can't say a thing back to them--not a
thing.

And so I went to bed. And the next day all that Father said to me
was, "Good-morning, Mary," and, "Good-night," just as he had ever
since I came. And that's all he's said yesterday and to-day. But he's
looked at me. He's looked at me a lot. I know, because at mealtimes
and others, when he's been in the room with me, I've looked up and
found his eyes on me. Funny, isn't it?

* * * * *

_Two weeks later_.

Well, I don't know as I have anything very special to say. Still, I
suppose I ought to write something; so I'll put down what little there
is.

Of course, there doesn't so much happen here, anyway, as there does at
home--I mean in Boston. (I _must_ stop calling it home down to Boston
as if this wasn't home at all. It makes Aunt Jane very, very angry,
and I don't think Father likes it very well.) But, as I was saying,
there really doesn't so much happen here as there does down to Boston;
and it isn't nearly so interesting. But, there! I suppose I mustn't
expect it to be interesting. I'm Mary now, not Marie.

There aren't any teas and dinners and pretty ladies and music and
soulful-eyed prospective su