I heard Aunt Hattie tell Mother one day that it was going to take about the whole six months to break Mary Marie of those outlandish country ways of hers. (So, you see, it isn't all honey and pie even for Marie. This trying to be Mary and Marie, even six months apart, isn't the easiest thing ever was!) I don't think Mother liked it very well--what Aunt Hattie said about my outlandish ways. I didn't hear all Mother said, but I knew by the way she looked and acted, and the little I did hear, that she didn't care for that word "outlandish"

applied to her little girl--not at all.

Mother's a dear. And she's so happy! And, by the way, I think it _is_ the violinist. He's here a lot, and she's out with him to concerts and plays, and riding in his automobile. And she always puts on her prettiest dresses, and she's very particular about her shoes, and her hats, that they're becoming, and all that. Oh, I'm so excited! And I'm having such a good time watching them! Oh, I don't mean watching them in a disagreeable way, so that they _see_ it; and, of course, I don't listen--not the sneak kind of listening. But, of course, I have to get all I can--for the book, you know; and, of course, if I just happen to be in the window-seat corner in the library and hear things accidentally, why, that's all right.

And I have heard things.

He says her eyes are lovely. He likes her best in blue. He's very lonely, and he never found a woman before who really understood him.

He thinks her soul and his are tuned to the same string. (Oh, dear!

That sounds funny and horrid, and not at all the way it did when _he_ said it. It was beautiful then. But--well, that is what it meant, anyway.)

She told him she was lonely, too, and that she was very glad to have him for a friend; and he said he prized her friendship above everything else in the world. And he looks at her, and follows her around the room with his eyes; and she blushes up real pink and pretty lots of times when he comes into the room.

Now, if that isn't making love to each other, I don't know what _is_.

I'm sure he's going to propose. Oh, I'm so excited!

Oh, yes, I know if he does propose and she says yes, he'll be my new father. I understand that. And, of course, I can't help wondering how I'll like it. Sometimes I think I won't like it at all. Sometimes I almost catch myself wishing that I didn't have to have any new father or mother. I'd _never_ need a new mother, anyway, and I wouldn't need a new father if my father-by-order-of-the-court would be as nice as he was there two or three times in the observatory.

But, there! After all, I must remember that I'm not the one that's doing the choosing. It's Mother. And if she wants the violinist I mustn't have anything to say. Besides, I really like him very much, anyway. He's the best of the lot. I'm sure of that. And that's something. And then, of course, I'm glad to have something to make this a love story, and best of all I would be glad to have Mother stop being divorced, anyway.

Mr. Harlow doesn't come here any more, I guess. Anyway, I haven't seen him here once since I came back; and I haven't heard anybody mention his name.

Quite a lot of the others are here, and there are some new ones. But the violinist is here most, and Mother seems to go out with him most to places. That's why I say I think it's the violinist.

I haven't heard from Father.

Now just my writing that down that way shows that I _expected_ to hear from him, though I don't really see why I should, either. Of course, he never _has_ written to me; and, of course, I understand that I'm nothing but his daughter by order of the court. But, some way, I did think maybe he'd write me just a little bit of a note in answer to mine--my bread-and-b.u.t.ter letter, I mean; for of course, Mother had me write that to him as soon as I got here.

But he hasn't.

I wonder how he's getting along, and if he misses me any. But of course, he doesn't do _that_. If I was a star, now--!

_Two days after Thanksgiving_.

The violinist has got a rival. I'm sure he has. It's Mr. Easterbrook.

He's old--much as forty--and bald-headed and fat, and has got lots of money. And he's a very estimable man. (I heard Aunt Hattie say that.) He's awfully jolly, and I like him. He brings me the loveliest boxes of candy, and calls me Puss. (I don't like _that_, particularly. I'd prefer him to call me Miss Anderson.) He's not nearly so good-looking as the violinist. The violinist is lots more thrilling, but I shouldn't wonder if Mr. Easterbrook was more comfortable to live with.

The violinist is the kind of a man that makes you want to sit up and take notice, and have your hair and finger nails and shoes just right; but with Mr. Easterbrook you wouldn't mind a bit sitting in a big chair before the fire with a pair of old slippers on, if your feet were tired.

Mr. Easterbrook doesn't care for music. He's a broker. He looks awfully bored when the violinist is playing, and he fidgets with his watch-chain, and clears his throat very loudly just before he speaks every time. His automobile is bigger and handsomer than the violinist's. (Aunt Hattie says the violinist's automobile is a hired one.) And Mr. Easterbrook's flowers that he sends to Mother are handsomer, too, and lots more of them, than the violinist's. Aunt Hattie has noticed that, too. In fact, I guess there isn't anything about Mr. Easterbrook that she doesn't notice.

Aunt Hattie likes Mr. Easterbrook lots better than she does the violinist. I heard her talking to Mother one day. She said that any one that would look twice at a lazy, shiftless fiddler with probably not a dollar laid by for a rainy day, when all the while there was just waiting to be picked an estimable gentleman of independent fortune and stable position like Mr. Easterbrook--well, she had her opinion of her; that's all. She meant Mother, of course. _I_ knew that. I'm no child.

Mother knew it, too; and she didn't like it. She flushed up and bit her lip, and answered back, cold, like ice.

"I understand, of course, what you mean, Hattie; but even if I acknowledged that this very estimable, unimpeachable gentleman was waiting to be picked (which I do not), I should have to remind you that I've already had one experience with an estimable, unimpeachable gentleman of independent fortune and stable position, and I do not care for another."

"But, my dear Madge," began Aunt Hattie again, "to marry a man without _any_ money--"

"I haven't married him yet," cut in Mother, cold again, like ice. "But let me tell you this, Hattie. I'd rather live on bread and water in a log cabin with the man I loved than in a palace with an estimable, unimpeachable gentleman who gave me the shivers every time he came into the room."

And it was just after she said this that I interrupted. I was right in plain, sight in the window-seat reading; but I guess they'd forgotten I was there, for they both jumped a lot when I spoke. And yet I'll leave it to you if what I said wasn't perfectly natural.

"Of course, you would, Mother!" I cried. "And, anyhow, if you did marry the violinist, and you found out afterward you didn't like him, that wouldn't matter a mite, for you could _un_marry him at any time, just as you did Father, and--"

But they wouldn't let me finish. They wouldn't let me say anything more. Mother cried, "_Marie_!" in her most I'm-shocked-at-you voice; and Aunt Hattie cried, "Child--child!" And she seemed shocked, too.

And both of them threw up their hands and looked at each other in the did-you-ever-hear-such-a-dreadful-thing? way that old folks do when young folks have displeased them. And them they both went right out of the room, talking about the unfortunate effect on a child's mind, and perverted morals, and Mother reproaching Aunt Hattie for talking about those things before that child (meaning me, of course). Then they got too far down the hall for me to hear any more. But I don't see why they needed to have made such a fuss. It wasn't any secret that Mother got a divorce; and if she got one once, of course she could again.

(That's what I'm going to do when I'm married, if I grow tired of him--my husband, I mean.) Oh, yes, I know Mrs. Mayhew and her crowd don't seem to think divorces are very nice; but there needn't anybody try to make me think that anything my mother does isn't perfectly nice and all right. And _she_ got a divorce. So, there!

_One week later_.

There hasn't much happened--only one or two things. But maybe I'd better tell them before I forget it, especially as they have a good deal to do with the love part of the story. And I'm always so glad to get anything of that kind. I've been so afraid this wouldn't be much of a love story, after all. But I guess it will be, all right. Anyhow, I _know_ Mother's part will be, for it's getting more and more exciting--about Mr. Easterbrook and the violinist, I mean.

They both want Mother. Anybody can see that now, and, of course, Mother sees it. But which she'll take I don't know. n.o.body knows. It's perfectly plain to be seen, though, which one Grandfather and Aunt Hattie want her to take! It's Mr. Easterbrook.

And he is awfully nice. He brought me a perfectly beautiful bracelet the other day--but Mother wouldn't let me keep it. So he had to take it back. I don't think he liked it very well, and I didn't like it, either. I _wanted_ that bracelet. But Mother says I'm much too young to wear much jewelry. Oh, will the time ever come when I'll be old enough to take my proper place in the world? Sometimes it seems as if it never would!

Well, as I said, it's plain to be seen who it is that Grandfather and Aunt Hattie favor; but I'm not so sure about Mother. Mother acts funny. Sometimes she won't go with either of them anywhere; then she seems to want to go all the time. And she acts as if she didn't care which she went with, so long as she was just going--somewhere. I think, though, she really likes the violinist the best; and I guess Grandfather and Aunt Hattie think so, too.

Something happened last night. Grandfather began to talk at the dinner-table. He'd heard something he didn't like about the violinist, I guess, and he started in to tell Mother. But they stopped him.

Mother and Aunt Hattie looked at him and then at me, and then back to him, in their most see-who's-here!--you-mustn't-talk-before-her way.

So he shrugged his shoulders and stopped.

But I guess he told them in the library afterwards, for I heard them all talking very excitedly, and some loud; and I guess Mother didn't like what they said, and got quite angry, for I heard her say, when she came out through the door, that she didn't believe a word of it, and she thought it was a wicked, cruel shame to tell stories like that just because they didn't like a man.

This morning she broke an engagement with Mr. Easterbrook to go auto-riding and went with the violinist to a morning musicale instead; and after she'd gone Aunt Hattie sighed and looked at Grandfather and shrugged her shoulders, and said she was afraid they'd driven her straight into the arms of the one they wanted to avoid, and that Madge always _would_ take the part of the under dog.

I suppose they thought I wouldn't understand. But I did, perfectly.

They meant that by telling stories about the violinist they'd been hoping to get her to give him up, but instead of that, they'd made her turn to him all the more, just because she was so sorry for him.

Funny, isn't it?

_One week later_.

Well, I guess now something has happened all right! And let me say right away that _I_ don't like that violinist now, either, any better than Grandfather and Aunt Hattie. And it's not entirely because of what happened last night, either. It's been coming on for quite a while--ever since I first saw him talking to Theresa in the hall when she let him in one night a week ago.

Theresa is awfully pretty, and I guess he thinks, so. Anyhow, I heard him telling her so in the hall, and she laughed and blushed and looked sideways at him. Then they saw me, and he stiffened up and said, very proper and dignified, "Kindly hand my card to Mrs. Anderson." And Theresa said, "Yes, sir." And she was very proper and dignified, too.

Well, that was the beginning. I can see now that it was, though, I never thought of its meaning anything then, only that he thought Theresa was a pretty girl, just as we all do.

But four days ago I saw them again. He tried to put his arm around her that time, and the very next day he tried to kiss her, and after a minute she let him. More than once, too. And last night I heard him tell her she was the dearest girl in all the world, and he'd be perfectly happy if he could only marry her.

Well, you can imagine how I felt, when I thought all the time it was Mother he was coming to see! And now to find out that it was Theresa he wanted all the time, and he was only coming to see Mother so he could see Theresa!