I knew that, and so I spoke quick, before he could get absent-minded again.
"Yes, but, Father, you can go back, in this case, and so can Mother, 'cause you both want to," I hurried on, almost choking in my anxiety to get it all out quickly.

"And Mother said it was _her_ fault.

I heard her." "_Her_ fault!" I could see that Father did not quite understand, even yet.
"Yes, yes, just as you said it was yours--about all those things at the first, you know, when--when she was a spirit of youth beating against the bars." Father turned square around and faced me.
"Mary, what are you talking about ?" he asked then.

And I'd have been scared of his voice if it hadn't been for the great light that was shining in his eyes.
But I looked into his eyes, and wasn't scared; and I told him everything, every single thing--all about how Mother had cried over the little blue dress that day in the trunk-room, and how she had shown the tarnished lace and said that _she_ had tarnished the happiness of him and of herself and of me; and that it was all her fault; that she was thoughtless and willful and exacting and a spoiled child; and, oh, if she could only try it over again, how differently she would do! And there was a lot more.

I told everything--everything I could remember.