g good-bye.

And so I guess I was still thinking of him and being sorry for
him when I got to Boston. That's why I couldn't be so crazy and
hilariously glad when the folks met me, I suspect. Some way, all of a
sudden, I found myself wishing _he_ could be there, too.

Of course, I knew that that was bad and wicked and unkind to Mother,
and she'd feel so grieved not to have me satisfied with her. And I
wouldn't have told her of it for the world. So I tried just as hard as
I could to forget him--on account of Mother, so as to be loyal to her.
And I did 'most forget him by the time I'd got home. But it all came
back again a little later when we were unpacking my trunk.

You see, Mother found the two new white dresses, and the dear little
shoes. I knew then, of course, that she'd have to know all--I mean,
how she hadn't pleased Father, even after all her pains trying to have
me go as Mary.

"Why, Marie, what in the world is this?" she demanded, holding up one
of the new dresses.

I could have cried.

I suppose she saw by my face how awfully I felt 'cause she'd found it.
And, of course, she saw something was the matter; and she thought it
was--

Well, the first thing _I_ knew she was looking at me in her very
sternest, sorriest way, and saying:

"Oh, Marie, how could you? I'm ashamed of you! Couldn't you wear the
Mary dresses one little three months to please your father?"

I did cry, then. After all I'd been through, to have her accuse _me_
of getting those dresses! Well, I just couldn't stand it. And I told
her so as well as I could, only I was crying so by now that I could
hardly speak. I told her how it was hard enough to be Mary part of the
time, and Marie part of the time, when I _knew_ what they wanted me to
be. But when she tried to have me Mary while he wanted me Marie, and
he tried to have me Marie while she wanted me Mary--I did not know
what they wanted; and I wished I had never been born unless I could
have been born a plain Susie or Bessie, or Annabelle, and not a Mary
Marie that was all mixed up till I didn't know what I was.

And then I cried some more.

Mother dropped the dress then, and took me in her arms over on the
couch, and she said, "There, there," and that I was tired and nervous,
and all wrought up, and to cry all I wanted to. And by and by, when I
was calmer I could tell Mother all about it.

And I did.

I told her how hard I tried to be Mary all the way up to Andersonville
and aft