grandfather. I hated him for treating my mother so. Hated him! Then I
burst out crying, and cried so awful my eyes were nearly washed out.

There were twelve and a half years' worth of tears that had to come out,
and I let them come. After they were out I felt lighter.

But sleep? There wasn't a blink of it for me all night. I was so mixed
up with new feelings that I was sick in my stomach, and my old
conscience got so sanctimonious that if I could have spanked it I would.

I wasn't eavesdropping; I know that's nasty. But forty times I'd been
punished for speaking when I shouldn't, and, besides, it was my duty to
find myself. They saw me, and then forgot. If they hadn't wanted me to
know what they were saying, they shouldn't have said it.

But that didn't do my conscience any good. I hate a conscience. It's
always making you feel low down and disreputable. I don't believe I will
say anything to my children about one, and let them have some peace.

For two days I didn't have any. Then I decided I'd wait until Miss
Katherine came, and not say anything to her or to anybody about what I'd
heard until I found out a little more about that remembrance in her
face. But the waiting for her is the longest wait I've ever waited
through yet.

It certainly is queer what a surprise you are to yourself. Before I knew
that my mother and her father and his father and some other fathers
behind him had lived in the Alden House, I would have given all I own,
which isn't much, just my body, to have known it. And I guess I would
have been that airy Martha couldn't have lived with me, and would have