Andersonville_! Why, I couldn't believe my ears. Of course, I was wild
and crazy with delight--but it was all so different. Why, I began to
think almost that I was Marie, and not Mary at all.

And it's been that way the whole week through. I've had a beautiful
time. I've been so excited! And Mother is excited, too. Of course, I
wrote her and told her all about it right away. And she wrote right
back and wanted to know everything--everything I could tell her; all
the little things. And she was so interested in Cousin Grace, and
wanted to know all about her; said _she_ never heard of her before,
and was she Father's own cousin, and how old was she, and was she
pretty, and was Father around the house more now, and did I see a lot
of him? She thought from something I said that I did.

I've just been writing her again, and I could tell her more now, of
course, than I could in that first letter. I've been here a whole
week, and, of course, I know more about things, and have done more.

I told her that Cousin Grace wasn't really Father's cousin at all, so
it wasn't any wonder she hadn't ever heard of her. She was the wife
of Father's third cousin who went to South America six years ago and
caught the fever and died there. So this Mrs. Whitney isn't really any
relation of his at all. But he'd always known her, even before she
married his cousin; and so, when her husband died, and she didn't have
any home, he asked her to come here.

I don't know why Aunt Jane went away, but she's been gone 'most four
months now, they say here. Nellie told me. Nellie is the maid--I mean
hired girl--here now. (I _will_ keep forgetting that I'm Mary now and
must use the Mary words here.)

I told Mother that she (Cousin Grace) was quite old, but not so old
as Aunt Jane. (I asked Nellie, and Nellie said she guessed she was
thirty-five, but she didn't look a day over twenty-five.) And she _is_
pretty, and everybody loves her. I think even Father likes to have her
around better than he did his own sister Jane, for he sometimes stays
around quite a lot now--after meals, and in the evening, I mean. And
that's what I told Mother. Oh, of course, he still likes his stars the
best of anything, but not quite as well as he used to, maybe--not to
give _all_ his time to them.

I haven't anything especial to write. I'm just having a beautiful
time. Of course, I miss Mother, but I know I'm going to have her again
in just September--I forgot to say that Fath