more right away, just as soon as he got a chance. And I
didn't want him to get a chance till I'd said what _I_ wanted to. But
I hadn't anywhere near said what I wanted to when he did stop me. Why,
he almost jumped out of his chair.

"Mary!" he gasped. "What in the world are you talking about?"

"Why, Father, I was telling you," I explained. And I tried to be so
cool and calm that it would make him calm and cool, too. (But it
didn't calm him or cool him one bit.) "It's about when you're married,
and--"

"Married!" he interrupted again. (They never let _me_ interrupt like
that!)

"To Cousin Grace--yes. But, Father, you--you _are_ going to marry
Cousin Grace, aren't you?" I cried--and I did 'most cry, for I saw by
his face that he was not.

"That is not my present intention," he said. His lips came together
hard, and he looked over his shoulder to see if Cousin Grace was
coming back.

"But you're going to _sometime_," I begged him.

"I do not expect to." Again he looked over his shoulder to see if she
was coming. I looked, too, and we both saw through the window that she
had gone into the library and lighted up and was sitting at the table
reading.

I fell back in my chair, and I know I looked grieved and hurt and
disappointed, as I almost sobbed:

"Oh, Father, and when I _thought_ you were going to!"

"There, there, child!" He spoke, stern and almost cross now. "This
absurd, nonsensical idea has gone quite far enough. Let us think no
more about it."

"It isn't absurd and nonsensical!" I cried. And I could hardly say the
words, I was choking up so. "Everybody said you were going to, and I
wrote Mother so; and--"

"You wrote that to your mother?" He did jump from his chair this time.

"Yes; and she was glad."

"Oh, she was!" He sat down sort of limp-like and queer.

"Yes. She said she was glad you'd found an estimable woman to make a
home for you."

"Oh, she did." He said this, too, in that queer, funny, quiet kind of
way.

"Yes." I spoke, decided and firm. I'd begun to think, all of a sudden,
that maybe he didn't appreciate Mother as much as she did him; and
I determined right then and there to make him, if I could. When I
remembered all the lovely things she'd said about him--

"Father," I began; and I spoke this time, even more decided and firm.
"I don't believe you appreciate Mother."

"Eh? What?"

He made _me_ jump this time, he turned around with such a jerk, and
spoke so sharply. But in