l kinds of
colors.

"You?" he gasped, just above his breath. Then suddenly he seemed to
remember. "Why, yes, yes, to be sure. You are here, aren't you? How do
you do, Mary?"

He came up then and held out his hand, and I thought that was all he
was going to do. But after a funny little hesitation he stooped and
kissed my forehead. Then he turned and went into the library with very
quick steps, and I didn't see him again till at the supper-table.

At the supper-table he said again, "How do you do, Mary?" Then he
seemed to forget all about me. At least he didn't say anything more to
me; but three or four times, when I glanced up, I found him looking at
me. But just as soon as I looked back at him he turned his eyes away
and cleared his throat, and began to eat or to talk to Aunt Jane.

After dinner--I mean supper--he went out to the observatory, just as
he always used to. Aunt Jane said her head ached and she was going to
bed. I said I guessed I would step over to Carrie Heywood's; but Aunt
Jane said, certainly not; that I was much too young to be running
around nights in the dark. Nights! And it was only seven o'clock, and
not dark at all! But of course I couldn't go.

Aunt Jane went upstairs, and I was left alone. I didn't feel a bit
like reading; besides, there wasn't a book or a magazine anywhere
_asking_ you to read. They just shrieked, "Touch me not!" behind the
glass doors in the library. I hate sewing. I mean _Marie_ hates it.
Aunt Jane says Mary's got to learn.

For a time I just walked around the different rooms downstairs,
looking at the chairs and tables and rugs all _just so_, as if they 'd
been measured with a yardstick. Marie jerked up a shade and pushed a
chair crooked and kicked a rug up at one corner; but Mary put them all
back properly--so there wasn't any fun in that for long.

After a while I opened the parlor door and peeked in. They used to
keep it open when Mother was here; but Aunt Jane doesn't use it. I
knew where the electric push button was, though, and I turned on the
light.

It used to be an awful room, and it's worse now, on account of its
shut-up look. Before I got the light on, the chairs and sofas loomed
up like ghosts in their linen covers. And when the light did come on,
I saw that all the old shiver places were there. Not one was missing.
Great-Grandfather Anderson's coffin plate on black velvet, the wax
cross and flowers that had been used at three Anderson funerals, the
hai