there needn't anybody
try to make me think that anything my mother does isn't perfectly nice
and all right. And _she_ got a divorce. So, there!

* * * * *

_One week later_.

There hasn't much happened--only one or two things. But maybe I'd
better tell them before I forget it, especially as they have a good
deal to do with the love part of the story. And I'm always so glad to
get anything of that kind. I've been so afraid this wouldn't be much
of a love story, after all. But I guess it will be, all right. Anyhow,
I _know_ Mother's part will be, for it's getting more and more
exciting--about Mr. Easterbrook and the violinist, I mean.

They both want Mother. Anybody can see that now, and, of course,
Mother sees it. But which she'll take I don't know. Nobody knows. It's
perfectly plain to be seen, though, which one Grandfather and Aunt
Hattie want her to take! It's Mr. Easterbrook.

And he is awfully nice. He brought me a perfectly beautiful bracelet
the other day--but Mother wouldn't let me keep it. So he had to take
it back. I don't think he liked it very well, and I didn't like it,
either. I _wanted_ that bracelet. But Mother says I'm much too young
to wear much jewelry. Oh, will the time ever come when I'll be old
enough to take my proper place in the world? Sometimes it seems as if
it never would!

Well, as I said, it's plain to be seen who it is that Grandfather
and Aunt Hattie favor; but I'm not so sure about Mother. Mother acts
funny. Sometimes she won't go with either of them anywhere; then she
seems to want to go all the time. And she acts as if she didn't care
which she went with, so long as she was just going--somewhere. I
think, though, she really likes the violinist the best; and I guess
Grandfather and Aunt Hattie think so, too.

Something happened last night. Grandfather began to talk at the
dinner-table. He'd heard something he didn't like about the violinist,
I guess, and he started in to tell Mother. But they stopped him.
Mother and Aunt Hattie looked at him and then at me, and then back to
him, in their most see-who's-here!--you-mustn't-talk-before-her way.
So he shrugged his shoulders and stopped.

But I guess he told them in the library afterwards, for I heard them
all talking very excitedly, and some loud; and I guess Mother didn't
like what they said, and got quite angry, for I heard her say, when
she came out through the door, that she didn't believe a word