“Cloth?  Dress?” frowned Father.

“Yes, that Mother told me about,” I explained.  Then I told him the story that Mother had told me—­how you couldn’t go back and be unmarried, just as you were before, any more than you could put the cloth back on the shelf, all neatly folded in a great long web after it had been cut up into a dress.

“Did your mother say—­that?” asked Father.  His voice was husky, and his eyes were turned away, but they were not looking at the dancers.  He was listening to me now.  I knew that, and so I spoke quick, before he could get absent-minded again.

“Yes, but, Father, you can go back, in this case, and so can Mother, ’cause you both want to,” I hurried on, almost choking in my anxiety to get it all out quickly.  “And Mother said it was her fault.  I heard her.”

“Her fault!” I could see that Father did not quite understand, even yet.

“Yes, yes, just as you said it was yours—­about all those things at the first, you know, when—­when she was a spirit of youth beating against the bars.”

Father turned square around and faced me.

“Mary, what are you talking about?” he asked then.  And I’d have been scared of his voice if it hadn’t been for the great light that was shining in his eyes.

But I looked into his eyes, and wasn’t scared; and I told him everything, every single thing—­all about how Mother had cried over the little blue dress that day in the trunk-room, and how she had shown the tarnished lace and said that she had tarnished the happiness of him and of herself and of me; and that it was all her fault; that she was thoughtless and willful and exacting and a spoiled child; and, oh, if she could only try it over again, how differently she would do!  And there was a lot more.  I told everything—­everything I could remember.  Some way, I didn’t believe that Mother would mind now, after what Father had said.  And I just knew she wouldn’t mind if she could see the look in Father’s eyes as I talked.

He didn’t interrupt me—­not long interruptions.  He did speak out a quick little word now and then, at some of the parts; and once I know I saw him wipe a tear from his eyes.  After that he put up his hand and sat with his eyes covered all the rest of the time I was talking.  And he didn’t take it down till I said: 

“And so, Father, that’s why I told you; ’cause it seemed to me if you wanted to try again, and she wanted to try again, why can’t you do it?  Oh, Father, think how perfectly lovely ’twould be if you did, and if it worked!  Why, I wouldn’t care whether I was Mary or Marie, or what I was.  I’d have you and Mother both together, and, oh, how I should love it!”

It was just here that Father’s arm came out and slipped around me in a great big hug.

“Bless your heart!  But, Mary, my dear, how are we going to—­to bring this about?” And he actually stammered and blushed, and he looked almost young with his eyes so shining and his lips so smiling.  And then is when my second great idea came to me.