(Father's always forgetting things.) But, anyway, when Aunt Jane called him he got his hat and hurried off without so much as one word to me, who was standing near, or to Aunt Jane, who was following him all through the hall, and telling him in her most I'm-amazed-at-you voice how shockingly absent-minded he was getting to be.
* * * * * _One week later._ Father's been awfully queer this whole week through.

I can't make him out at all.

Sometimes I think he's glad I told him all those things in the parlor that day I dressed up in Marie's things, and sometimes I think he's sorry and wished I hadn't.
The very next morning he came down to breakfast with such a funny look on his face.

He said good-morning to me three times, and all through breakfast he kept looking over at me with a kind of scowl that was not cross at all--just puzzled.
After breakfast he didn't go out to the observatory, not even into the library.

He fidgeted around the dining-room till Aunt Jane went out into the kitchen to give her orders to Susie; then he burst out, all of a sudden: "Well, Mary, what shall we do to-day ?" Just like that he said it, as if we'd been doing things together every day of our lives.
"D-do ?" I asked; and I know I showed how surprised I was by the way I stammered and flushed up.
"Certainly, do," he answered, impatient and scowling.