"How is--your mother, Mary?" he asks. And it was just as if he'd
opened the door to another room, he had such a whole lot of questions
to ask after that. And when he'd finished he knew everything: what
time we got up and went to bed, and what we did all day, and the
parties and dinners and auto rides, and the folks that came such a lot
to see Mother.
Then all of a sudden he stopped--asking questions, I mean. He stopped
just as suddenly as he'd begun. Why, I was right in the middle of
telling about a concert for charity we got up just before I came away,
and how Mother had practiced for days and days with the young man who
played the violin, when all of a sudden Father jerked his watch from
his pocket and said:
"There, there, Mary, it's getting late. You've talked enough--too
much. Now go to bed. Good-night."
Talked too much, indeed! And who'd been making me do all the talking,
I should like to know? But, of course, I couldn't _say_ anything.
That's the unfair part of it. Old folks can say anything, _anything_
they want to to _you_, but you can't say a thing back to them--not a
thing.
And so I went to bed. And the next day all that Father said to me
was, "Good-morning, Mary," and, "Good-night," just as he had ever
since I came.
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