Nurse Sarah is hovering around everywhere, asking to help, and pretending she’s sorry we’re going.  But she isn’t sorry.  She’s glad.  I know she is.  She never did appreciate Mother, and she thinks she’ll have everything her own way now.  But she won’t. I could tell her a thing or two if I wanted to.  But I shan’t.

Father’s sister, Aunt Jane Anderson, from St. Paul, is coming to keep house for him, partly on account of Father, and partly on account of me.  “If that child is going to be with her father six months of the time, she’s got to have some woman there beside a meddling old nurse and a nosey servant girl!” They didn’t know I heard that.  But I did.  And now Aunt Jane is coming.  My! how mad Nurse Sarah would be if she knew.  But she doesn’t.

I guess I’ll end this chapter here and begin a fresh one down in Boston.  Oh, I do so wonder what it’ll be like—­Boston, Mother’s home, Grandpa Desmond, and all the rest.  I’m so excited I can hardly wait.  You see, Mother never took me home with her but once, and then I was a very small child.  I don’t know why, but I guess Father didn’t want me to go.  It’s safe to say he didn’t, anyway.  He never wants me to do anything, hardly.  That’s why I suspect him of not wanting me to go down to Grandpa Desmond’s.  And Mother didn’t go only once, in ages.

Now this will be the end.  And when I begin again it will be in Boston.  Only think of it—­really, truly Boston!

CHAPTER IV

WHEN I AM MARIE

BOSTON.

Yes, I’m here.  I’ve been here a week.  But this is the first minute
I’ve had a chance to write a word.  I’ve been so busy just being here. 
And so has Mother.  There’s been such a lot going on since we came.  But
I’ll try now to begin at the beginning and tell what happened.

Well, first we got into Boston at four o’clock Monday afternoon, and there was Grandpa Desmond to meet us.  He’s lovely—­tall and dignified, with grayish hair and merry eyes like Mother’s, only his are behind glasses.  At the station he just kissed Mother and me and said he was glad to see us, and led us to the place where Peter was waiting with the car. (Peter drives Grandpa’s automobile, and he’s lovely, too.)

Mother and Grandpa talked very fast and very lively all the way home, and Mother laughed quite a lot.  But in the hall she cried a little, and Grandpa patted her shoulder, and said, “There, there!” and told her how glad he was to get his little girl back, and that they were going to be very happy now and forget the past.  And Mother said, yes, yes, indeed, she knew she was; and she was so glad to be there, and that everything was going to be just the same, wasn’t it?  Only—­then, all of a sudden she looked over at me and began to cry again—­only, of course, things couldn’t be “just the same,” she choked, hurrying over to me and putting both arms around me, and crying harder than ever.