Of course, I was glad—­glad he’s going to marry her, I mean.  I was glad for everybody; for Father and Cousin Grace, for they would be happy, of course, and he wouldn’t be lonesome any more.  And I was glad for Mother because I knew she’d be glad that he’d at last found the good, kind woman to make a home for him.  And, of course, I was glad for myself, for I’d much rather have Cousin Grace here than Aunt Jane, and I knew she’d make the best new mother of any of them.  And last, but not least, I’m glad for the book, because now I’ve got a love story sure.  That is, I’m pretty sure.  Of course, it may not be so; but I think it is.

When I wrote Mother I told her all about it—­the signs and symptoms, I mean, and how different and thawed-out Father was; and I asked if she didn’t think it was so, too.  But she didn’t answer that part.  She didn’t write much, anyway.  It was an awfully snippy letter; but she said she had a headache and didn’t feel at all well.  So that was the reason, probably, why she didn’t say more—­about Father’s love affair, I mean.  She only said she was glad, she was sure, if Father had found an estimable woman to make a home for him, and she hoped they’d be happy.  Then she went on talking about something else.  And she didn’t write much more, anyway, about anything.

* * * * *

August.

Well, of all the topsy-turvy worlds, this is the topsy-turviest, I am sure.  What do they want me to do, and which do they want me to be?  Oh, I wish I was just a plain Susie or Bessie, and not a cross-current and a contradiction, with a father that wants me to be one thing and a mother that wants me to be another!  It was bad enough before, when Father wanted me to be Mary, and Mother wanted me to be Marie.  But now—­

Well, to begin at the beginning.

It’s all over—­the love story, I mean, and I know now why it’s been so hard for me to remember to be Mary and why everything is different, and all.

They don’t want me to be Mary.

They want me to be Marie.

And now I don’t know what to think.  If Mother’s going to want me to be Mary, and Father’s going to want me to be Marie, how am I going to know what anybody wants, ever?  Besides, it was getting to be such a beautiful love story—­Father and Cousin Grace.  And now—­

But let me tell you what happened.

It was last night.  We were on the piazza, Father, Cousin Grace, and I. And I was thinking how perfectly lovely it was that Father was there, and that he was getting to be so nice and folksy, and how I did hope it would last, even after he’d married her, and not have any of that incompatibility stuff come into it.  Well, just then she got up and went into the house for something—­Cousin Grace, I mean—­and all of a sudden I determined to tell Father how glad I was, about him and Cousin Grace; and how I hoped it would last—­having him out there with us, and all that.  And I told him.