Of course what's happened since, up to now, I don't know _all_ about,
for I was only a child for the first few years. Now I'm almost a young
lady, "standing with reluctant feet where the brook and river meet."
(I read that last night. I think it's perfectly beautiful. So kind of
sad and sweet. It makes me want to cry every time I think of it.) But
even if I don't know all of what's happened since I was born, I know
a good deal, for I've seen quite a lot, and I've made Nurse tell me a
lot more.

I know that ever since I can remember I've had to keep as still as a
mouse the minute Father comes into the house; and I know that I never
could imagine the kind of a mother that Nurse tells about, if it
wasn't that sometimes when Father has gone off on a trip, Mother and
I have romped all over the house, and had the most beautiful time.
I know that Father says that Mother is always trying to make me a
"Marie," and nothing else; and that Mother says she knows Father'll
never be happy until he's made me into a stupid little "Mary," with
never an atom of life of my own. And, do you know? it does seem
sometimes, as if Mary and Marie were fighting inside of me, and I
wonder which is going to beat. Funny, isn't it?

Father is president of the college now, and I don't know how many
stars and comets and things he's discovered since the night the star
and I were born together. But I know he's very famous, and that he's
written up in the papers and magazines, and is in the big fat red
"Who's Who" in the library, and has lots of noted men come to see him.

Nurse says that Grandma Anderson died very soon after I was born, but
that it didn't make any particular difference in the housekeeping; for