_Twelve years later_.
_Twelve years_--yes. And I'm twenty-eight years old. Pretty old,
little Mary Marie of the long ago would think. And, well, perhaps
to-day I feel just as old as she would put it.
I came up into the attic this morning to pack away some things I shall
no longer need, now that I am going to leave Jerry. (Jerry is
my husband.) And in the bottom of my little trunk I found this
manuscript. I had forgotten that such a thing existed; but with its
laboriously written pages before me, it all came back to me; and I
began to read; here a sentence; there a paragraph; somewhere else a
page. Then, with a little half laugh and half sob, I carried it to an
old rocking-chair by the cobwebby dormer window, and settled myself to
read it straight through.
And I have read it.
Poor little Mary Marie! Dear little Mary Marie! To meet you like this,
to share with you your joys and sorrows, hopes and despairs, of
those years long ago, is like sitting hand in hand on a sofa with a
childhood's friend, each listening to an eager "And do you remember?"
falling constantly from delighted lips that cannot seem to talk half
fast enough.
But you have taught me much, little Mary Marie. I understand--oh, I
understand so many things so much better, now, since reading this
little story in your round childish hand.
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