She said she was selfish and willful and exacting, and wanted Father all to herself; and she didn’t stop to think that he had his work to do, and his place to make in the world; and that all of living, to him, wasn’t just in being married to her, and attending to her every whim.  She said she could see it all now, but that she couldn’t then, she was too young, and undisciplined, and she’d never been denied a thing in the world she wanted.  As she said that, right before my eyes rose that box of chocolates she made me eat one at a time; but, of course, I didn’t say anything!  Besides, Mother hurried right on talking.

She said things went on worse and worse—­and it was all her fault.  She grew sour and cross and disagreeable.  She could see now that she did.  But she did not realize at all then what she was doing.  She was just thinking of herself—­always herself; her rights, her wrongs, her hurt feelings, her wants and wishes.  She never once thought that he had rights and wrongs and hurt feelings, maybe.

And so the tarnish kept growing more and more.  She said there was nothing like selfishness to tarnish the beautiful fabric of married life. (Isn’t that a lovely sentence?  I said that over and over to myself so as to be sure and remember it, so I could get it into this story.  I thought it was beautiful.)

She said a lot more—­oh, ever so much more; but I can’t remember it all. (I lost some while I was saying that sentence over and over, so as to remember it.) I know that she went on to say that by and by the tarnish began to dim the brightness of my life, too; and that was the worst of all, she said—­that innocent children should suffer, and their young lives be spotted by the kind of living I’d had to have, with this wretched makeshift of a divided home.  She began to cry again then, and begged me to forgive her, and I cried and tried to tell her I didn’t mind it; but, of course, I’m older now, and I know I do mind it, though I’m trying just as hard as I can not to be Mary when I ought to be Marie, or Marie when I ought to be Mary.  Only I get all mixed up so, lately, and I said so, and I guess I cried some more.

Mother jumped up then, and said, “Tut, tut,” what was she thinking of to talk like this when it couldn’t do a bit of good, but only made matters worse.  And she said that only went to prove how she was still keeping on tarnishing my happiness and bringing tears to my bright eyes, when certainly nothing of the whole wretched business was my fault.

She thrust the dress back into the trunk then, and shut the lid.  Then she took me downstairs and bathed my eyes and face with cold water, and hers, too.  And she began to talk and laugh and tell stories, and be gayer and jollier than I’d seen her for ever so long.  And she was that way at dinner, too, until Grandfather happened to mention the reception to-morrow night, and ask if she was going.

She flushed up red then, oh, so red! and said, “Certainly not.”  Then she added quick, with a funny little drawing-in of her breath, that she should let Marie go, though, with her Aunt Hattie.