He was much more interested in his new star than he was in his new daughter.  We were both born the same night, you see, and that star was lots more consequence than I was.  But, then, that’s Father all over.  And that’s one of the things, I think, that bothers Mother.  I heard her say once to Father that she didn’t see why, when there were so many, many stars, a paltry one or two more need to be made such a fuss about.  And I don’t, either.

But Father just groaned, and shook his head, and threw up his hands, and looked so tired.  And that’s all he said.  That’s all he says lots of times.  But it’s enough.  It’s enough to make you feel so small and mean and insignificant as if you were just a little green worm crawling on the ground.  Did you ever feel like a green worm crawling on the ground?  It’s not a pleasant feeling at all.

Well, now, about the name.  Of course they had to begin to talk about naming me pretty soon; and Nurse said they did talk a lot.  But they couldn’t settle it.  Nurse said that that was about the first thing that showed how teetotally utterly they were going to disagree about things.

Mother wanted to call me Viola, after her mother, and Father wanted to call me Abigail Jane after his mother; and they wouldn’t either one give in to the other.  Mother was sick and nervous, and cried a lot those days, and she used to sob out that if they thought they were going to name her darling little baby that awful Abigail Jane, they were very much mistaken; that she would never give her consent to it—­never.  Then Father would say in his cold, stern way:  “Very well, then, you needn’t.  But neither shall I give my consent to my daughter’s being named that absurd Viola.  The child is a human being—­not a fiddle in an orchestra!”

And that’s the way it went, Nurse said, until everybody was just about crazy.  Then somebody suggested “Mary.”  And Father said, very well, they might call me Mary; and Mother said certainly, she would consent to Mary, only she should pronounce it Marie.  And so it was settled.  Father called me Mary, and Mother called me Marie.  And right away everybody else began to call me Mary Marie.  And that’s the way it’s been ever since.

Of course, when you stop to think of it, it’s sort of queer and funny, though naturally I didn’t think of it, growing up with it as I did, and always having it, until suddenly one day it occurred to me that none of the other girls had two names, one for their father, and one for their mother to call them by.  I began to notice other things then, too.  Their fathers and mothers didn’t live in rooms at opposite ends of the house.  Their fathers and mothers seemed to like each other, and to talk together, and to have little jokes and laughs together, and twinkle with their eyes.  That is, most of them did.