And I think I shall love both Father and Mother better separate, too.  Of course I love Mother, and I know I’d just adore Father if he’d let me—­he’s so tall and fine and splendid, when he’s out among folks.  All the girls are simply crazy over him.  And I am, too.  Only, at home—­well, it’s so hard to be Mary always.  And you see, he named me Mary—­

But I mustn’t tell that here.  That’s part of the story, and this is only the Preface.  I’m going to begin it to-morrow—­the real story—­Chapter One.

But, there—­I mustn’t call it a “chapter” out loud.  Diaries don’t have chapters, and this is a diary.  I mustn’t forget that it’s a diary.  But I can write it down as a chapter, for it’s going to be a novel, after it’s got done being a diary.

CHAPTER I

I AM BORN

The sun was slowly setting in the west, casting golden beams of light into the somber old room.

That’s the way it ought to begin, I know, and I’d like to do it, but I can’t.  I’m beginning with my being born, of course, and Nurse Sarah says the sun wasn’t shining at all.  It was night and the stars were out.  She remembers particularly about the stars, for Father was in the observatory, and couldn’t be disturbed. (We never disturb Father when he’s there, you know.) And so he didn’t even know he had a daughter until the next morning when he came out to breakfast.  And he was late to that, for he stopped to write down something he had found out about one of the consternations in the night.

He’s always finding out something about those old stars just when we want him to pay attention to something else.  And, oh, I forgot to say that I know it is “constellation,” and not “consternation.”  But I used to call them that when I was a little girl, and Mother said it was a good name for them, anyway, for they were a consternation to her all right.  Oh, she said right off afterward that she didn’t mean that, and that I must forget she said it.  Mother’s always saying that about things she says.

Well, as I was saying, Father didn’t know until after breakfast that he had a little daughter. (We never tell him disturbing, exciting things just before meals.) And then Nurse told him.

I asked what he said, and Nurse laughed and gave her funny little shrug to her shoulders.

“Yes, what did he say, indeed?” she retorted.  “He frowned, looked kind of dazed, then muttered:  ‘Well, well, upon my soul!  Yes, to be sure!’”

Then he came in to see me.

I don’t know, of course, what he thought of me, but I guess he didn’t think much of me, from what Nurse said.  Of course I was very, very small, and I never yet saw a little bit of a baby that was pretty, or looked as if it was much account.  So maybe you couldn’t really blame him.

Nurse said he looked at me, muttered, “Well, well, upon my soul!” again, and seemed really quite interested till they started to put me in his arms.  Then he threw up both hands, backed off, and cried, “Oh, no, no!” He turned to Mother and hoped she was feeling pretty well, then he got out of the room just as quick as he could.  And Nurse said that was the end of it, so far as paying any more attention to me was concerned for quite a while.