You see, I not only got ready for Marie, but I had planned to keep her Marie, and not let her be Mary--at all." And then he told me.

He told me how he'd never forgotten that day in the parlor when I cried (and made a wet spot on the arm of the sofa--_I_ never forgot that!), and he saw then how hard it was for me to live here, with him so absorbed in his work and Aunt Jane so stern in her black dress.

And he said I put it very vividly when I talked about being Marie in Boston, and Mary here, and he saw just how it was.

And so he thought and thought about it all winter, and wondered what he could do.

And after a time it came to him--he'd let me be Marie here; that is, he'd try to make it so I could be Marie.