before, we
are not interested. Besides, while under your father's roof, it would
seem to me very poor taste, indeed, for you to make constant reference
to things you may have been doing while _not_ under his roof. The
situation is deplorable enough, however you take it, without making it
positively unbearable. You will remember, Mary?"

Mary said, "Yes, Aunt Jane," very polite and proper; but I can tell
you that inside of Mary, _Marie_ was just boiling.

Unbearable, indeed!

We didn't say anything more all the way home. Naturally, _I_ was not
going to, after that speech; and Aunt Jane said nothing. So silence
reigned supreme.

Then we got home. Things looked quite natural, only there was a new
maid in the kitchen, and Nurse Sarah wasn't there. Father wasn't
there, either. And, just as I suspected, 't was a star that was to
blame, only this time the star was the moon--an eclipse; and he'd gone
somewhere out West so he could see it better.

He isn't coming back till next week; and when I think how he made me
come on the first day, so as to get in the whole six months, when all
the time he did not care enough about it to be here himself, I'm just
mad--I mean, the righteously indignant kind of mad--for I can't help
thinking how poor Mother would have loved those extra days with her.

Aunt Jane said I was to have my old room, and so, as soon as I got
here, I went right up and took off my hat and coat, and pretty quick
they brought up my trunk, and I unpacked it; and I didn't hurry about
it either. I wasn't a bit anxious to get downstairs again to Aunt
Jane. Besides, I may as well own up, I was crying--a little. Mother's
room was right across the hall, and it looked so lonesome; and I
couldn't help remembering how different this homecoming was from the
one in Boston, six months ago.

Well, at last I had to go down to dinner--I mean supper--and, by the
way, I made another break on that. I _called_ it dinner right out
loud, and never thought--till I saw Aunt Jane's face.

"_Supper_ will be ready directly," she said, with cold and icy
emphasis. "And may I ask you to remember, Mary, please, that
Andersonville has dinner at _noon_, not at six o'clock."

"Yes, Aunt Jane," said Mary, polite and proper again. (I shan't say
what Marie said inside.)

We didn't do anything in the evening but read and go to bed at nine
o'clock. I _wanted_ to run over to Carrie Heywood's; but Aunt Jane
said no, not till morning. (I wonder wh