It seems that for a long time they didn't want folks to know there was going to be a divorce. So before folks they tried to be just as usual. But Nurse Sarah said _she_ knew there was going to be one long ago. The first I ever heard of it was Nurse telling Nora, the girl we had in the kitchen then; and the minute I got a chance I asked Nurse what it was--a divorce. My, I can remember now how scared she looked, and how she clapped her hand over my mouth. She wouldn't tell me--not a word. And that's the first time I ever saw her give that quick little look over each shoulder. She's done it lots of times since. As I said, she wouldn't tell me, so I had to ask some one else. I wasn't going to let it go by and not find out--not when Nurse Sarah looked so scared, and when it was something my father and mother were going to have some day. I didn't like to ask Mother. Some way, I had a feeling, from the way Nurse Sarah looked, that it was something Mother wasn't going to like. And I thought if maybe she didn't know yet she was going to have it, that certainly _I_ didn't want to be the one to tell her. So I didn't ask Mother what a divorce was. I didn't even think of asking Father, of course. I never ask Father questions. Nurse says I did ask him once why he didn't love me like other papas loved their little girls. But I was very little then, and I don't remember it at all. But Nurse said Father didn't like it very well, and maybe I _did_ remember that part, without really knowing it. Anyhow, I never think of asking Father questions. I asked the doctor first. I thought maybe 't was some kind of a disease, and if he knew it was coming, he could give them some sort of a medicine to keep it away--like being vaccinated so's not to have smallpox, you know. And I told him so. He gave a funny little laugh, that somehow didn't sound like a laugh at all. Then he grew very, very sober, and said: "I'm sorry, little girl, but I'm afraid I haven't got any medicine that will prevent--a divorce. If I did have, there'd be no eating or drinking or sleeping for me, I'm thinking--I'd be so busy answering my calls." "Then it _is_ a disease!" I cried. And I can remember just how frightened I felt. "But isn't there any doctor anywhere that _can_ stop it?" He shook his head and gave that queer little laugh again. "I'm afraid not," he sighed. "As for it's being a disease--there are people that call it a disease, and there are others who call it a cure; and there are still others who say it's a remedy worse than the disease it tries to cure. But, there, you baby! What am I saying? Come, come, my dear, just forget it. It's nothing you should bother your little head over now. Wait till you're older." Till I'm older, indeed! How I hate to have folks talk to me like that! And they do--they do it all the time. As if I was a child now, when I'm almost standing there where the brook and river meet!