Then Aunt Jane spoke, stiff and dignified.

“Oh, very well, of course, if you put it that way.  I can quite well understand that you would want her to go—­for your sake.  But I thought that, under the circumstances, you would manage somehow to put up with the noise and—­”

“Jane!” Just like that he interrupted, and he thundered, too, so that Aunt Jane actually jumped.  And I guess I did, too.  He had sprung to his feet.  “Jane, let us close this matter once for all.  I am not letting the child go for my sake.  I am letting her go for her own.  So far as I am concerned, if I consulted no one’s wishes but my own, I should—­keep her here always.”

With that he turned and strode from the room, leaving Aunt Jane and me just staring after him.

But only for a minute did I stare.  It came to me then what he had said—­that he would like to keep me here always.  For I had heard it, even if he had said the last word very low, and in a queer, indistinct voice.  I was sure I had heard it, and I suddenly realized what it meant.  So I ran after him; and that time, if I had found him, I think I would have hugged him.  But I didn’t find him.  He must have gone quite away from the house.  He wasn’t even out to the observatory.  I went out to see.

He didn’t come in all the afternoon.  I watched for that, too.  And when he did come—­well, I wouldn’t have dared to hug him then.  He had his very sternest I-am-not-thinking-of-you-at-all air, and he just came in to supper and then went into the library without saying hardly anything.  Yet, some way, the look on his face made me cry.  I don’t know why.

The next day he was more as he has been since we had that talk in the parlor.  And he has been different since then, you know.  He really has.  He has talked quite a lot with me, as I have said, and I think he’s been trying, part of the time, to find something I’ll be interested in.  Honestly, I think he’s been trying to make up for Carrie Heywood and Stella Mayhew and Charlie Smith and Mr. Livingstone.  I think that’s why he took me to walk that day in the woods, and why he took me out to the observatory to see the stars quite a number of times.  Twice he’s asked me to play to him, and once he asked me if Mary wasn’t about ready to dress up in Marie’s clothes again.  But he was joking then, I knew, for Aunt Jane was right there in the house.  Besides, I saw the twinkle in his eyes that I’ve seen there once or twice before.  I just love that twinkle in Father’s eyes!

But that hasn’t come any since Mother’s letter to Aunt Jane arrived.  He’s been the same in one way, yet different in another.  Honestly, if it didn’t seem too wildly absurd for anything, I should say he was actually sorry to have me go.  But, of course, that isn’t possible.  Oh, yes, I know he said that day at the dinner-table that he should like to keep me always.  But I don’t think he really meant it.  He hasn’t acted a mite like that since, and I guess he said it just to hush up Aunt Jane, and make her stop arguing the matter.