There are gentlemen, too.  I suppose one of them will be Mother’s lover by and by; but of course I don’t know which one yet.  I’m awfully interested in them, though.  And of course it’s perfectly natural that I should be.  Wouldn’t you be interested in the man that was going to be your new father?  Well, I just guess you would!  Anybody would.  Why, most folks have only one father, you know, and they have to take that one just as he is; and it’s all a matter of chance whether they get one that’s cross or pleasant; or homely or fine and grand-looking; or the common kind you can hug and kiss and hang round his neck, or the stand-off-don’t-touch-me-I-mustn’t-be-disturbed kind like mine.  I mean the one I did have.  But, there! that doesn’t sound right, either; for of course he’s still my father just the same, only—­well, he isn’t Mother’s husband any more, so I suppose he’s only my father by order of the court, same as I’m his daughter.

Well, anyhow, he’s the father I’ve grown up with, and of course I’m used to him now.  And it’s an altogether different matter to think of having a brand-new father thrust upon you, all ready-made, as you might say, and of course I am interested.  There’s such a whole lot depends on the father.  Why, only think how different things would have been at home if my father had been different!  There were such a lot of things I had to be careful not to do—­and just as many I had to be careful to do—­on account of Father.

And so now, when I see all these nice young gentlemen (only they aren’t all young; some of them are quite old) coming to the house and talking to Mother, and hanging over the back of her chair, and handing her tea and little cakes, I can’t help wondering which, if any, is going to be her lover and my new father.  And I am also wondering what I’ll have to do on account of him when I get him, if I get him.

There are quite a lot of them, and they’re all different.  They’d make very different kinds of fathers, I’m sure, and I’m afraid I wouldn’t like some of them.  But, after all, it’s Mother that ought to settle which to have—­not me. She’s the one to be pleased.  ’T would be such a pity to have to change again.  Though she could, of course, same as she did Father, I suppose.

As I said, they’re all different.  There are only two that are anywhere near alike, and they aren’t quite the same, for one’s a lawyer and the other’s in a bank.  But they both carry canes and wear tall silk hats, and part their hair in the middle, and look at you through the kind of big round eyeglasses with dark rims that would make you look awfully homely if they didn’t make you look so stylish.  But I don’t think Mother cares very much for either the lawyer or the bank man, and I’m glad.  I wouldn’t like to live with those glasses every day, even if they are stylish.  I’d much rather have Father’s kind.