“An’ things did change then, a lot, I’ll own.  Right away she began to refuse to go out with the students an’ young professors, an’ she sent down word she wasn’t to home when they called.  And pretty quick, of course, they stopped comin’.

“Housekeepin’?  Attend to that?  Well, y-yes, she did try to at first, a little; but of course your grandma had always given the orders—­through me, I mean; an’ there really wasn’t anything your ma could do.  An’ I told her so, plain.  Her ways were new an’ different an’ queer, an’ we liked ours better, anyway.  So she didn’t bother us much that way very long.  Besides, she wasn’t feelin’ very well, anyway, an’ for the next few months she stayed in her room a lot, an’ we didn’t see much of her.  Then by an’ by you came, an’—­well, I guess that’s all—­too much, you little chatterbox!”

CHAPTER III

THE BREAK IS MADE

And that’s the way Nurse Sarah finished her story, only she shrugged her shoulders again, and looked back, first one way, then another.  As for her calling me “chatterbox”—­she always calls me that when she’s been doing all the talking.

As near as I can remember, I have told Nurse Sarah’s story exactly as she told it to me, in her own words.  But of course I know I didn’t get it right all the time, and I know I’ve left out quite a lot.  But, anyway, it’s told a whole lot more than I could have told why they got married in the first place, and it brings my story right up to the point where I was born; and I’ve already told about naming me, and what a time they had over that.

Of course what’s happened since, up to now, I don’t know all about, for I was only a child for the first few years.  Now I’m almost a young lady, “standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet.”  (I read that last night.  I think it’s perfectly beautiful.  So kind of sad and sweet.  It makes me want to cry every time I think of it.) But even if I don’t know all of what’s happened since I was born, I know a good deal, for I’ve seen quite a lot, and I’ve made Nurse tell me a lot more.

I know that ever since I can remember I’ve had to keep as still as a mouse the minute Father comes into the house; and I know that I never could imagine the kind of a mother that Nurse tells about, if it wasn’t that sometimes when Father has gone off on a trip, Mother and I have romped all over the house, and had the most beautiful time.  I know that Father says that Mother is always trying to make me a “Marie,” and nothing else; and that Mother says she knows Father’ll never be happy until he’s made me into a stupid little “Mary,” with never an atom of life of my own.  And, do you know? it does seem sometimes, as if Mary and Marie were fighting inside of me, and I wonder which is going to beat.  Funny, isn’t it?

Father is president of the college now, and I don’t know how many stars and comets and things he’s discovered since the night the star and I were born together.  But I know he’s very famous, and that he’s written up in the papers and magazines, and is in the big fat red “Who’s Who” in the library, and has lots of noted men come to see him.