ived.
He's been the same in one way, yet different in another. Honestly, if
it didn't seem too wildly absurd for anything, I should say he was
actually sorry to have me go. But, of course, that isn't possible. Oh,
yes, I know he said that day at the dinner-table that he should like
to keep me always. But I don't think he really meant it. He hasn't
acted a mite like that since, and I guess he said it just to hush up
Aunt Jane, and make her stop arguing the matter.

Anyway, I'm _going_ to-morrow. And I'm so excited I can hardly
breathe.

CHAPTER VI

WHEN I AM BOTH TOGETHER

BOSTON AGAIN.

Well, I came last night. Mother and Grandfather and Aunt Hattie and
Baby Lester all met me at the station. And, my! wasn't I glad to see
them? Well, I just guess I was!

I was specially glad on account of having such a dreadful time with
Father that morning. I mean, I was feeling specially lonesome and
homesick, and not-belonging-anywhere like.

You see, it was this way: I'd been sort of hoping, I know, that at
the last, when I came to really go, Father would get back the
understanding smile and the twinkle, and show that he really _did_
care for me, and was sorry to have me go. But, dear me! Why, he
never was so stern and solemn, and
you're-my-daughter-only-by-the-order-of-the-court sort of way as he
was that morning.

He never even spoke at the breakfast-table. (He wasn't there hardly
long enough to speak, anyway, and he never ate a thing, only his
coffee--I mean he drank it.) Then he pushed his chair back from the
table and stalked out of the room.

He went to the station with me; but he didn't talk there much, only to
ask if I was sure I hadn't forgotten anything, and was I warmly clad.
Warmly clad, indeed! And there it was still August, and hot as it
could be! But that only goes to show how absent-minded he was, and how
little he was really thinking of _me_!

Well, of course, he got my ticket and checked my trunk, and did all
those proper, necessary things; then we sat down to wait for the
train. But did he stay with me and talk to me and tell me how glad he
had been to have me with him, and how sorry he was to have me go, and
all the other nice, polite things 'most everybody thinks they've got
to say when a visitor goes away? He did not. He asked me again if I
was sure I had not left anything, and was I warmly clad; then he took
out his newspaper and began to read. That is, he pretended to read;
but I don't