Mary Marie Part 20

_One week later_.

Things are awfully funny here this time. I wonder if it's all Cousin Grace that makes it so. Anyhow, she's just as different as different can be from Aunt Jane. And _things_ are different, everywhere.

Why, I forget half the time that I'm Mary. Honestly, I do. I try to be Mary. I try to move quietly, speak gently, and laugh softly, just as Mother told me to. But before I know it I'm acting natural again--just like Marie, you know.

And I believe it _is_ Cousin Grace. She never looks at you in Aunt Jane's I'm-amazed-at-you way. And she laughs herself a lot, and sings and plays, too--real pretty lively things; not just hymn tunes. And the house is different. There are four geraniums in the dining-room window, and the parlor is open every day. The wax flowers are there, but the hair wreath and the coffin plate are gone. Cousin Grace doesn't dress like Aunt Jane, either. She wears pretty white and blue dresses, and her hair is curly and fluffy.

And so I think all this is why I keep forgetting to be Mary. But, of course, I understand that Father expects me to be Mary, and so I try to remember--only I can't. Why, I couldn't even show him how much I knew about the stars. I tried to the other night. I went out to the observatory where he was, and asked him questions about the stars.

I tried to seem interested, and was going to tell him how I'd been studying about them, but he just laughed kind of funny, and said not to bother my pretty head about such things, but to come in and play to him on the piano.

So, of course, I did. And he sat and listened to three whole pieces.

Now, wasn't that funny?

_Two weeks later_.

I understand it all now--everything: why the house is different, and Father, and everything. And it _is_ Cousin Grace, and it _is_ a love story.

_Father is in love with her_.

_Now_ I guess I shall have something for this book!

It seems funny now that I didn't think of it at first. But I didn't--not until I heard Nellie and her beau talking about it. Nellie said she wasn't the only one in the house that was going to get married. And when he asked her what she meant, she said it was Dr.

Anderson and Mrs. Whitney. That anybody could see it that wasn't as blind as a bat.

My, but wasn't I excited? I just guess I was. And, of course, I saw then that I had been blind as a bat. But I began to open my eyes after that, and watch--not disagreeably, you know, but just glad and interested, and on account of the book.

And I saw:

That father stayed in the house a lot more than he used to.

That he talked more.

That he never thundered--I mean spoke stern and uncompromising to Cousin Grace the way he used to to Aunt Jane.

That he smiled more.

That he wasn't so absent-minded at meals and other times, but seemed to know we were there--Cousin Grace and I.

That he actually asked Cousin Grace and me to play for him several times.

That he went with us to the Sunday-School picnic. (I never saw Father at a picnic before, and I don't believe he ever saw himself at one.)

That--oh, I don't know, but a whole lot of little things that I can't remember; but they were all unmistakable, very unmistakable. And I wondered, when I saw it all, that I _had_ been as blind as a bat before.

Of course, I was glad--glad he's going to marry her, I mean. I was glad for everybody; for Father and Cousin Grace, for they would be happy, of course, and he wouldn't be lonesome any more. And I was glad for Mother because I knew she'd be glad that he'd at last found the good, kind woman to make a home for him. And, of course, I was glad for myself, for I'd much rather have Cousin Grace here than Aunt Jane, and I knew she'd make the best new mother of any of them. And last, but not least, I'm glad for the book, because now I've got a love story sure. That is, I'm pretty sure. Of course, it may not be so; but I think it is.

When I wrote Mother I told her all about it--the signs and symptoms, I mean, and how different and thawed-out Father was; and I asked if she didn't think it was so, too. But she didn't answer that part. She didn't write much, anyway. It was an awfully snippy letter; but she said she had a headache and didn't feel at all well. So that was the reason, probably, why she didn't say more--about Father's love affair, I mean. She only said she was glad, she was sure, if Father had found an estimable woman to make a home for him, and she hoped they'd be happy. Then she went on talking about something else. And she didn't write much more, anyway, about anything.

_August_.

Well, of all the topsy-turvy worlds, this is the topsy-turviest, I am sure. What _do_ they want me to do, and which do they want me to be?

Oh, I wish I was just a plain Susie or Bessie, and not a cross-current and a contradiction, with a father that wants me to be one thing and a mother that wants me to be another! It was bad enough before, when Father wanted me to be Mary, and Mother wanted me to be Marie. But now--

Well, to begin at the beginning.

It's all over--the love story, I mean, and I know now why it's been so hard for me to remember to be Mary and why everything is different, and all.

_They don't want me to be Mary_.

_They want me to be Marie_.

And now I don't know what to think. If Mother's going to want me to be Mary, and Father's going to want me to be Marie, how am I going to know what anybody wants, ever? Besides, it was getting to be such a beautiful love story--Father and Cousin Grace. And now--

But let me tell you what happened.

It was last night. We were on the piazza, Father, Cousin Grace, and I. And I was thinking how perfectly lovely it was that Father _was_ there, and that he was getting to be so nice and folksy, and how I _did_ hope it would last, even after he'd married her, and not have any of that incompatibility stuff come into it. Well, just then she got up and went into the house for something--Cousin Grace, I mean--and all of a sudden I determined to tell Father how glad I was, about him and Cousin Grace; and how I hoped it would last--having him out there with us, and all that. And I told him.

I don't remember what I said exactly. But I know I hurried on and said it fast, so as to get in all I could before he interrupted; for he had interrupted right at the first with an exclamation; and I knew he was going to say 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."