umped up so quick I thought something had hurt her, and cried,
"Good Heavens, Baby!" (How I hate to be called "Baby"!) Then she just
threw some money on to the table to pay the bill and hurried me away.

It was after that that she began to stay in her room so much, and not
take me anywhere except for walks at the other end of the town where
it was all quiet and stupid, and no music or lights, or anything. And
though I teased and teased to go back to the pretty, jolly places, she
wouldn't ever take me; not once.

Then by and by, one day, we met a little black-haired woman with white
cheeks and very big sad eyes. There weren't any spangly dresses and
gold slippers about _her_, I can tell you! She was crying on a bench
in the park, and Mother told me to stay back and watch the swans while
she went up and spoke to her. (Why do old folks always make us watch
swans or read books or look into store windows or run and play all
the time? Don't they suppose we understand perfectly well what it
means--that they're going to say something they don't want us to
hear?) Well, Mother and the lady on the bench talked and talked ever
so long, and then Mother called me up, and the lady cried a little
over me, and said, "Now, perhaps, if I'd had a little girl like
that--!" Then she stopped and cried some more.

We saw this lady real often after that. She was nice and pretty and
sweet, and I liked her; but she was always awfully sad, and I don't
believe it was half so good for Mother to be with her as it would have
been for her to be with those jolly, laughing ladies that were always
having such good times. But I couldn't make Mother see it that way at
all. There are times when it seems as if Mother just _couldn't_ see
things the way I do. Honestly, it seems sometimes almost as if _she_
was the cross-current and contradiction instead of me. It does.

Well, as I said before, I didn't like it very well out there, and I
don't believe Mother did, either. But it's all over now, and we're
back home packing up to go to Boston.

Everything seems awfully queer. Maybe because Father isn't here,
for one thing. He wrote very polite and asked us to come to get our
things, and he said he was going to New York on business for several
days, so Mother need not fear he should annoy her with his presence.
Then, another thing, Mother's queer. This morning she was singing away
at the top of her voice and running all over the house picking up
things she want