I am back in No. 4, in one of the thirteen beds.  My body goes on doing the same things.  Gets up at five o’clock.  Dresses, cleans, prays, eats, goes to school, eats, sews, plays, eats, studies, goes to bed.  And that’s got to be done every day in the same way it was done the day before.

But it’s just my body that does them.  Outside I am a little machine wound up; inside I am a thousand miles away, and doing a thousand other things.  Some day I am going to blow up and break my inside workings, for I wasn’t meant to run regular and on time.  I wasn’t.

What was I meant for?  I don’t know.  But not to be tied to a rope.  And that’s what I am.  Tied to a rope.  If I were a boy I’d cut it.

* * * * *

I am almost crazy!  A wonderful thing has happened.  I am so excited my breathing is as bad as old Miss Betsy Hays’s.  I believe I know who I am.

My heart is jumping and thumping and carrying on so that it makes my teeth chatter; and as I can’t tell anybody what I’ve heard, I am likely to die from keeping it to myself.

I am not going to die until I find out.  If I did I would be as bad off in heaven as on earth.  Even an angel would prefer to know something about itself.

I’m like Miss Bray now.  I’m counting on going to heaven.  Otherwise it wouldn’t make any difference who I was, as one more misery don’t matter when you’re swamped in miserableness.  I suppose that’s what hell is:  Miserableness.

What are you when you don’t go to heaven?

But that’s got nothing to do with how I found out who I am.  It’s like Martha, though:  always butting in with questions no Mary on earth could answer.

Well, the way I found out was one of those mysterious ways in which God works his wonders.  Yesterday afternoon I asked Miss Bray if I could go over and play with the Moon children, three of whom are sick, and she said I might.  We were in the nursery, which is next to Mrs. Moon’s bedroom, and she and the lady from Michigan, who is visiting her, were talking and paying no attention to us.  Presently something the lady said—­her name is Mrs. Grey—­made everything in me stop working, and my heart gave a little click like a clock when the pendulum don’t swing right.

She was sitting with her back to the door, which was open, and I could see her, but she couldn’t see me.  All of a sudden she put down her sewing and looked at Mrs. Moon as if something had just come to her.

“Elizabeth Moon, I believe I know that child’s uncle,” she said.  “Ever since you told me about her something has been bothering me.  Didn’t you say her mother had a brother who years ago went West?”

“Hush,” said Mrs. Moon, and she nodded toward me.  “She’ll hear you, and the ladies wouldn’t like it.”

She lowered her voice so I couldn’t hear all she said, but I heard something about its being the only thing Yorkburg ever did keep quiet about.  And only then because everybody felt so sorry for her.  In a flash I knew they were talking about me.