itors _here_. My! Wouldn't Aunt Jane have
four fits? And Father, too. But I'd just like to put one of Mother's
teas with the little cakes and flowers and talk and tinkling laughs
down in Aunt Jane's parlor, and then watch what happened. Oh, of
course, the party couldn't stand it long--not in there with the hair
wreath and the coffin plate. But they could stand it long enough for
Father to thunder from the library, "Jane, what in Heaven's name is
the meaning of all this?" And for Aunt Jane to give one look at the
kind of clothes _real_ folks wear, and then flee with her hands to her
ears and her eyes upraised to the ceiling. Wouldn't it be fun?

But, there! What's the use of imagining perfectly crazy, impossible
things like that? We haven't had a thing here in that parlor since I
came but one missionary meeting and one Ladies' Aid Sewing Circle; and
after the last one (the Sewing Circle) Aunt Jane worked a whole day
picking threads off the carpet, and smoothing down the linen covers
because they'd got so mussed up. And I heard her tell the hired girl
that she shouldn't have that Sewing Circle here again in a hurry, and
when she did have them they'd have to sew in the dining-room with a
sheet spread down to catch the threads. My! but I would like to see
Aunt Jane with one of Mother's teas in her parlor!

I can't see as Father has changed much of any these last two weeks. He
still doesn't pay much of any attention to me, though I do find him
looking at me sometimes, just as if he was trying to make up his mind
about something. He doesn't say hardly anything to me, only once or
twice when he got to asking questions again about Boston and Mother.

The last time I told him all about Mr. Harlow, and he was so
interested! I just happened to mention his name, and he wanted to know
right away if it was Mr. Carl Harlow, and if I knew whether Mother had
ever known him before. And of course I told him right away that it
was--the same one she was engaged to before she was engaged to him.

Father looked funny and kind of grunted and said, yes, yes, he knew.
Then he said, "That will do, Mary." And he began to read his book
again. But he never turned a page, and it wasn't five minutes before
he got up and walked around the room, picking out books from the
bookcases and putting them right back, and picking up things from the
mantel and putting _them_ right back. Then he turned to me and asked
with a kind of of-course-I-don't-care air: