eak to you. I couldn't help showing I had been
crying--he had seen it. But I tried very hard to stop now. My first
thought, after my startled realization that he was there, was to
wonder how long he had been there--how much of all that awful singing
and banging he had heard.

"Yes, sir." I tried not to have my voice shake as I said it; but I
couldn't quite help that.

"What is the meaning of this, Mary? Why are you crying?"

I shook my head. I didn't want to tell him, of course; so I just
stammered out something about being sorry I had disturbed him. Then
I edged toward the door to show him that if he would step one side I
would go away at once and not bother him any longer.

But he didn't step one side. He asked more questions, one right after
another.

"Are you sick, Mary?"

I shook my head.

"Did you hurt yourself?"

I shook my head again.

"It isn't--your mother--you haven't had bad news from her?"

And then I blurted it out without thinking--without thinking at all
what I was saying: "No, no--but I wish I had, I wish I had; 'cause
then I could go to her, and go away from here!" The minute I'd said
it I _knew_ what I'd said, and how awful it sounded; and I clapped my
fingers to my lips. But 'twas too late. It's always too late, when
you've once said it. So I just waited for him to thunder out his
anger; for, of course, I thought he _would_ thunder in rage and
righteous indignation.

But he didn't. Instead, very quietly and gently he said:

"Are you so unhappy, then, Mary--here?"

And I looked at him, and his eyes and his mouth and his whole face
weren't angry at all. They were just sorry, actually sorry. And
somehow, before I knew it, I was crying again, and Father, with his
arm around me--_with his arm around me!_ think of that!--was leading
me to the sofa.

And I cried and cried there, with my head on the arm of the sofa, till
I'd made a big tear spot on the linen cover; and I wondered if it
would dry up before Aunt Jane saw it, or if it would change color
or leak through to the red plush underneath, or some other dreadful
thing. And then, some way, I found myself telling it all over to
Father--about Mary and Marie, I mean, just as if he was Mother, or
some one I loved--I mean, some one I loved and _wasn't afraid of_; for
of course I love Father. Of course I do!

Well, I told him everything (when I got started there was no
stopping)--all about how hard it was to be Mary, and how to-day I had