That something was a question from Billy.
"Aunt Hannah, why don't I feel like Marie did?
why don't I feel like everybody does in books and stories?
Marie went around with such a detached, heavenly, absorbed look in her eyes, before the twins came to her home.

But I don't.

I don't find anything like that in my face, when I look in the glass.

And I don't feel detached and absorbed and heavenly.

I'm happy, of course; but I can't help thinking of the dear, dear times Bertram and I have together, just we two, and I can't seem to imagine it at all with a third person around." "Billy! _Third person_, indeed!" "There! I knew 'twould shock you," mourned Billy.