Then Grandpa came and hugged us both, and patted us, and said, “There, there!” and pulled off his glasses and wiped them very fast and very hard.

But it wasn’t only a minute or two before Mother was laughing again, and saying, “Nonsense!” and “The idea!” and that this was a pretty way to introduce her little Marie to her new home!  Then she hurried me to the dearest little room I ever saw, right out of hers, and took off my things.  Then we went all over the house.  And it’s just as lovely as can be—­not at all like Father’s in Andersonville.

Oh, Father’s is fine and big and handsome, and all that, of course; but not like this.  His is just a nice place to eat and sleep in, and go to when it rains.  But this—­this you just want to live in all the time.  Here there are curtains ’way up and sunshine, and flowers in pots, and magazines, and cozy nooks with cushions everywhere; and books that you’ve just been reading laid down. (All Father’s books are in bookcases, always, except while one’s in your hands being read.)

Grandpa’s other daughter, Mother’s sister, Hattie, lives here and keeps house for Grandpa.  She has a little boy named Lester, six years old; and her husband is dead.  They were away for what they called a week-end when we came, but they got here a little after we did Monday afternoon; and they’re lovely, too.

The house is a straight-up-and-down one with a back and front, but no sides except the one snug up to you on the right and left.  And there isn’t any yard except a little bit of a square brick one at the back where they have clothes and ash barrels, and a little grass spot in front at one side of the steps, not big enough for our old cat to take a nap in, hardly.  But it’s perfectly lovely inside; and it’s the insides of houses that really count just as it is the insides of people—­their hearts, I mean; whether they’re good and kind, or hateful and disagreeable.

We have dinner at night here, and I’ve been to the theater twice already in the afternoon.  I’ve got to go to school next week, Mother says, but so far I’ve just been having a good time.  And so’s Mother.  Honestly, it has just seemed as if Mother couldn’t crowd the days full enough.  She hasn’t been still a minute.

Lots of her old friends have been to see her; and when there hasn’t been anybody else around she’s taken Peter and had him drive us all over Boston to see things;—­all kinds of things; Bunker Hill and museums, and moving pictures, and one play.

But we didn’t stay at the play.  It started out all right, but pretty soon a man and a woman on the stage began to quarrel.  They were married (not really, but in the play, I mean), and I guess it was some more of that incompatibility stuff.  Anyhow, as they began to talk more and more, Mother began to fidget, and pretty soon I saw she was gathering up our things; and the minute the curtain went down after the first act, she says: