CHAPTER I

I AM BORN


The sun was slowly setting in the west, casting golden beams of light
into the somber old room.

That's the way it ought to begin, I know, and I'd like to do it, but
I can't. I'm beginning with my being born, of course, and Nurse Sarah
says the sun wasn't shining at all. It was night and the stars were
out. She remembers particularly about the stars, for Father was in the
observatory, and couldn't be disturbed. (We never disturb Father when
he's there, you know.) And so he didn't even know he had a daughter
until the next morning when he came out to breakfast. And he was late
to that, for he stopped to write down something he had found out about
one of the consternations in the night.

He's always finding out _something_ about those old stars just when we
want him to pay attention to something else. And, oh, I forgot to say
that I know it is "constellation," and not "consternation." But I used
to call them that when I was a little girl, and Mother said it was a
good name for them, anyway, for they were a consternation to _her_ all
right. Oh, she said right off afterward that she didn't mean that,
and that I must forget she said it. Mother's always saying that about
things she says.