Three pieces!—­and all that whole big box of them just making my mouth water all the while; and all just to teach me that horrid old self-discipline!  Why, you’d think it was Aunt Jane doing it instead of Mother!

* * * * *

One week later.

It’s come—­Father’s letter.  It came last night.  Oh, it was short, and it didn’t say anything about what I wrote.  But I was proud of it, just the same.  I just guess I was!  There wasn’t much in it but just that I might stay till the school closed in June, and then come.  But he wrote it.  He didn’t get Aunt Jane to write to Mother, as he did before.  And then, besides, he must have forgotten his stars long enough to think of me a little—­for he remembered about the school, and that I couldn’t go there in Andersonville, and so he said I had better stay here till it finished.

And I was so glad to stay!  It made me very happy—­that letter.  It made Mother happy, too.  She liked it, and she thought it was very, very kind of Father to be willing to give me up almost three whole months of his six, so I could go to school here.  And she said so.  She said once to Aunt Hattie that she was almost tempted to write and thank him.  But Aunt Hattie said, “Pooh,” and it was no more than he ought to do, and that she wouldn’t be seen writing to a man who so carefully avoided writing to her.  So Mother didn’t do it, I guess.

But I wrote.  I had to write three letters, though, before I got one that Mother said would do to send.  The first one sounded so glad I was staying that Mother said she was afraid he would feel hurt, and that would be too bad—­when he’d been so kind.  And the second one sounded as if I was so sorry not to go to Andersonville the first of April that Mother said that would never do in the world.  He’d think I didn’t want to stay in Boston.  But the third letter I managed to make just glad enough to stay, and just sorry enough not to go.  So that Mother said it was all right.  And I sent it.  You see I asked Mother to help me about this letter.  I knew she wouldn’t cry and moan about being jealous this time.  And she didn’t.  She was real excited and happy over it.

* * * * *

April.

Well, the last chocolate drop went yesterday.  There were just seventy-six pieces in that two-pound box.  I counted them that first day.  Of course, they were fine and dandy, and I just loved them; but the trouble is, for the last week I’ve been eating such snippy little pieces.  You see, every day, without thinking, I’d just naturally pick out the biggest pieces.  So you can imagine what they got down to toward the last—­mostly chocolate almonds.

As for the self-discipline—­I don’t see as I feel any more disciplined than I did before, and I know I want chocolates just as much as ever.  And I said so to Mother.