men were a delusion and a snare.  Oh, she laughed as she said it.  But she was in earnest, just the same.  I could see that.  And she doesn’t seem to care much for any of the different men that come to see her.  She seems to ever so much rather stay with me.  In fact, she stays with me a lot these days—­almost all the time I’m out of school, indeed.  And she talks with me—­oh, she talks with me about lots of things. (I love to have her talk with me.  You know there’s a lot of difference between talking with folks and to folks.  Now, Father always talks to folks.)

One day it was about getting married that Mother talked with me, and I said I was so glad that when you didn’t like being married, or got tired of your husband, you could get unmarried, just as she did, and go back home and be just the same as you were before.

But Mother didn’t like that, at all.  She said no, no, and that I mustn’t talk like that, and that you couldn’t go back and be the same.  And that she’d found it out.  That she used to think you could.  But you couldn’t.  She said it was like what she read once, that you couldn’t really be the same any more than you could put the dress you were wearing back on the shelf in the store, and expect it to turn back into a fine long web of cloth all folded up nice and tidy, as it was in the first place.  And, of course, you couldn’t do that—­after the cloth was all cut up into a dress!

She said more things, too; and after Father’s letter came she said still more.  Oh, and I haven’t told yet about the letter, have I?  Well, I will now.

As I said at first, Mother brought it in and handed it over to me, saying she guessed it was from Father.  And I could see she was wondering what could be in it.  But I guess she wasn’t wondering any more than I was, only I was gladder to get it than she was, I suppose.  Anyhow, when she saw how glad I was, and how I jumped for the letter, she drew back, and looked somehow as if she’d been hurt, and said: 

“I did not know, Marie, that a letter from—­your father would mean so much to you.”

I don’t know what I did say to that.  I guess I didn’t say anything.  I’d already begun to read the letter, and I was in such a hurry to find out what he’d said.

I’ll copy it here.  It wasn’t long.  It was like this: 

    MY DEAR MARY: 

Some way Christmas has made me think of you.  I wish I had sent you some gift.  Yet I have not the slightest idea what would please you.  To tell the truth, I tried to find something—­but had to give it up.

I am wondering if you had a good time, and what you did.  After all, I’m pretty sure you did have a good time, for you are Marie now.  You see I have not forgotten how tired you got of being—­Mary.  Well, well, I do not know as I can blame you.

And now that I have asked what you did