, on account of Mother--that not for you, or Aunt Jane, or
anybody will I go back to that school and associate with folks that
won't associate with me--on account of Mother."

And then I told it--all about the girls, Stella Mayhew, Carrie, and
how they acted, and what they said about my being Dr. Jekyll and Mr.
Hyde because I was a Mary and a Marie, and the ice-cream, and the
parties they had to give up if they went with _me_. And I know I was
crying so I could hardly speak before I finished; and Father was on
his feet tramping up and down the room muttering something under his
breath, and looking--oh, I can't begin to tell how he looked. But it
was awful.

"And so that's why I wish," I finished chokingly, "that it would hurry
up and be a year, so Mother could get married."

"_Married!_" Like a flash he turned and stopped short, staring at me.

"Why, yes," I explained; "for if she _did_ get married, she wouldn't
be divorced any longer, would she?"

But he wouldn't answer. With a queer little noise in his throat he
turned again and began to walk up and down, up and down, until I
thought for a minute he'd forgotten I was there. But he hadn't. For
after a while he stopped again right in front of me.

"So your mother is thinking of getting married," he said in a voice so
queer it sounded as if it had come from away off somewhere.

But I shook my head and said no, of course; and that I was very sure
she wouldn't till her year was up, and even then I didn't know which
she'd take, so I couldn't tell for sure anything about it. But I hoped
she'd take one of them, so she wouldn't be divorced any longer.

"But you don't know _which_ she'll take," grunted Father again. He
turned then, and began to walk up and down again, with his hands in
his pockets; and I didn't know whether to go away or to stay, and I
suppose I'd have been there now if Aunt Jane hadn't suddenly appeared
in the library doorway.

"Charles, if Mary is going to school at all to-day it is high time she
was starting," she said. But Father didn't seem to hear. He was still
tramping up and down the room, his hands in his pockets.

"Charles!" Aunt Jane raised her voice and spoke again. "I said if Mary
is going to school at all to-day it is high time she was starting."

"Eh? What?" If you'll believe it, that man looked as dazed as if he'd
never even _heard_ of my going to school. Then suddenly his face
changed. "Oh, yes, to be sure. Well, er--Mary is not goi