Oh, I did so hope he wouldn’t go down to the junction.  It’s so hard to be taken care of “because it’s my duty, you know”!  But he went.  I told him he needn’t, when he was getting on the train with me.  I told him I just knew I could do it beautifully all by myself, almost-a-young lady like me.  But he only put his lips together hard, and said, cold, like ice:  “Are you then so eager to be rid of me?” Just as if I was the one that was eager to get rid of somebody!

Well, as I said, he went.  But he wasn’t much better on the train than he had been in the station.  He was as nervous and fidgety as a witch, and he acted as if he did so wish it would be over and over quick.  But at the junction—­at the junction a funny thing happened.  He put me on the train, just as Mother had done, and spoke to the conductor. (How I hated to have him do that!  Why, I’m six whole months older, ’most, than I was when I went up there!) And then when he’d put me in my seat (Father, I mean; not the conductor), all of a sudden he leaned over and kissed me; kissed me—­Father!  Then, before I could speak, or even look at him, he was gone; and I didn’t see him again, though it must have been five whole minutes before that train went.

I had a nice trip down to Boston, though nothing much happened.  This conductor was not near so nice and polite as the one I had coming up; and there wasn’t any lady with a baby to play with, nor any nice young gentleman to loan me magazines or buy candy for me.  But it wasn’t a very long ride from the junction to Boston, anyway.  So I didn’t mind.  Besides, I knew I had Mother waiting for me.

And wasn’t I glad to get there?  Well, I just guess I was!  And they acted as if they were glad to see me—­Mother, Grandfather, Aunt Hattie, and even Baby Lester.  He knew me, and remembered me.  He’d grown a lot, too.  And they said I had, and that I looked very nice. (I forgot to say that, of course, I had put on the Marie clothes to come home in—­though I honestly think Aunt Jane wanted to send me home in Mary’s blue gingham and calfskin shoes.  As if I’d have appeared in Boston in that rig!)

My, but it was good to get into an automobile again and just go!  And it was so good to have folks around you dressed in something besides don’t-care black alpaca and stiff collars.  And I said so.  And Mother seemed so pleased.

“You did want to come back to me, darling, didn’t you?” she cried, giving me a little hug.  And she looked so happy when I told her all over again how good it seemed to be Marie again, and have her and Boston, and automobiles, and pretty dresses and folks and noise again.

She didn’t say anything about Father then; but later, when we were up in my pretty room alone, and I was taking off my things, she made me tell her that Father hadn’t won my love away from her, and that I didn’t love him better than I did her; and that I wouldn’t rather stay with him than with her.