Mother’s a dear.  And she’s so happy!  And, by the way, I think it is the violinist.  He’s here a lot, and she’s out with him to concerts and plays, and riding in his automobile.  And she always puts on her prettiest dresses, and she’s very particular about her shoes, and her hats, that they’re becoming, and all that.  Oh, I’m so excited!  And I’m having such a good time watching them!  Oh, I don’t mean watching them in a disagreeable way, so that they see it; and, of course, I don’t listen—­not the sneak kind of listening.  But, of course, I have to get all I can—­for the book, you know; and, of course, if I just happen to be in the window-seat corner in the library and hear things accidentally, why, that’s all right.

And I have heard things.

He says her eyes are lovely.  He likes her best in blue.  He’s very lonely, and he never found a woman before who really understood him.  He thinks her soul and his are tuned to the same string. (Oh, dear!  That sounds funny and horrid, and not at all the way it did when he said it.  It was beautiful then.  But—­well, that is what it meant, anyway.)

She told him she was lonely, too, and that she was very glad to have him for a friend; and he said he prized her friendship above everything else in the world.  And he looks at her, and follows her around the room with his eyes; and she blushes up real pink and pretty lots of times when he comes into the room.

Now, if that isn’t making love to each other, I don’t know what is.  I’m sure he’s going to propose.  Oh, I’m so excited!

Oh, yes, I know if he does propose and she says yes, he’ll be my new father.  I understand that.  And, of course, I can’t help wondering how I’ll like it.  Sometimes I think I won’t like it at all.  Sometimes I almost catch myself wishing that I didn’t have to have any new father or mother.  I’d never need a new mother, anyway, and I wouldn’t need a new father if my father-by-order-of-the-court would be as nice as he was there two or three times in the observatory.

But, there!  After all, I must remember that I’m not the one that’s doing the choosing.  It’s Mother.  And if she wants the violinist I mustn’t have anything to say.  Besides, I really like him very much, anyway.  He’s the best of the lot.  I’m sure of that.  And that’s something.  And then, of course, I’m glad to have something to make this a love story, and best of all I would be glad to have Mother stop being divorced, anyway.

Mr. Harlow doesn’t come here any more, I guess.  Anyway, I haven’t seen him here once since I came back; and I haven’t heard anybody mention his name.

Quite a lot of the others are here, and there are some new ones.  But the violinist is here most, and Mother seems to go out with him most to places.  That’s why I say I think it’s the violinist.

I haven’t heard from Father.