As near as I can remember, I have told Nurse Sarah's story exactly as she told it to me, in her own words. But of course I know I didn't get it right all the time, and I know I've left out quite a lot. But, anyway, it's told a whole lot more than _I_ could have told why they got married in the first place, and it brings my story right up to the point where I was born; and I've already told about naming me, and what a time they had over that. 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 things went right on just as they had done, with her giving the orders as before; that she'd given them all alone anyway, mostly, the last year Grandma Anderson lived, and she knew just how Father liked things. She said Mother tried once or twice to take the reins herself, and once Nurse let her, just to see what would happen. But things got in an awful muddle right away, so that even Father noticed it and said things. After that Mother never tried again, I guess. Anyhow, she's never tried it since I can remember. She's always stayed most of the time up in her rooms in the east wing, except during meals, or when she went out with me, or went to the things she and Father had to go to together. For they did go to lots of things, Nurse says.