I just kind of tossed it off, and mumbled something about her looking it over; and I was going to say something else, but I saw that Father wasn't listening.

He had begun to talk again, softly, as if to himself.
"I suppose to-night, seeing you, and all this, brought it back to me so vividly." Then he turned and looked at me.

"You are very like your mother to-night, dear." "I suppose I am, maybe, when I'm Marie," I nodded.
He laughed with his lips, but his eyes didn't laugh one bit as he said: "What a quaint little fancy of yours that is, child--as if you were two in one." "But I am two in one," I declared.

"That's why I'm a cross-current and a contradiction, you know," I explained.
I thought he'd understand.

But he didn't.