“I say I don’t believe you appreciate my mother.  You acted right now as if you didn’t believe she meant it when I told you she was glad you had found an estimable woman to make a home for you.  But she did mean it.  I know, because she said it before, once, last year, that she hoped you would find one.”

“Oh, she did.”  He sat back in his chair again, sort of limp-like.  But I couldn’t tell yet, from his face, whether I’d convinced him or not.  So I went on.

“Yes, and that isn’t all.  There’s another reason, why I know Mother always has—­has your best interest at heart.  She—­she tried to make me over into Mary before I came, so as to please you.”

“She did what?” Once more he made me jump, he turned so suddenly, and spoke with such a short, sharp snap.

But in spite of the jump I went right on, just as I had before, firm and decided.  I told him everything—­all about the cooking lessons, and the astronomy book we read an hour every day, and the pink silk dress I couldn’t have, and even about the box of chocolates and the self-discipline.  And how she said if she’d had self-discipline when she was a girl, her life would have been very different.  And I told him about how she began to hush me up from laughing too loud, or making any kind of noise, because I was soon to be Mary, and she wanted me to get used to it, so I wouldn’t trouble him when I got here.

I talked very fast and hurriedly.  I was afraid he’d interrupt, and I wanted to get in all I could before he did.  But he didn’t interrupt at all.  I couldn’t see how he was taking it, though—­what I said—­for after the very first he sat back in his chair and shaded his eyes with his hand; and he sat like that all the time I was talking.  He did not even stir until I said how at the last she bought me the homely shoes and the plain dark suit so I could go as Mary, and be Mary when Aunt Jane first saw me get off the train.

When I said that, he dropped his hand and turned around and stared at me.  And there was such a funny look in his eyes.

“I thought you didn’t look the same!” he cried; “not so white and airy and—­and—­I can’t explain it, but you looked different.  And yet, I didn’t think it could be so, for I knew you looked just as you did when you came, and that no one had asked you to—­to put on Mary’s things this year.”

He sort of smiled when he said that; then he got up and began to walk up and down the piazza, muttering:  “So you came as Mary, you came as Mary.”  Then, after a minute, he gave a funny little laugh and sat down.

Mrs. Small came up the front walk then to see Cousin Grace, and Father told her to go right into the library where Cousin Grace was.  So we were left alone again, after a minute.

It was ’most dark on the piazza, but I could see Father’s face in the light from the window; and it looked—­well, I’d never seen it look like that before.  It was as if something that had been on it for years had dropped off and left it clear where before it had been blurred and indistinct.  No, that doesn’t exactly describe it either.  I can’t describe it.  But I’ll go on and say what he said.