Rush after him and tell him he'd forgotten to hear my lessons? _Father_? Well, I guess not! Besides, it wasn't my fault. _I_ was there all ready. It wasn't my blame that he wasn't there to hear me. But he might remember and come back. Well, if he did, _I'd_ be there. So I went to one of those bookcases and pulled out a touch-me-not book from behind the glass door. Then I sat down and read till the supper-bell rang. Father was five minutes late to supper. I don't know whether he looked at me or not. I didn't dare to look at him--until Aunt Jane said, in her chilliest manner: "I trust your daughter had good lessons, Charles." I _had_ to look at him then. I just couldn't look anywhere else. So I was looking straight at him when he gave that funny little startled glance into my eyes. And into his eyes then there crept the funniest, dearest little understanding twinkle--and I suddenly realized that Father, _Father_, was laughing with me at a little secret between _us_. But 't was only for a second. The next moment his eyes were very grave and looking at Aunt Jane. "I have no cause to complain--of my daughter's lessons to-day," he said very quietly. Then he glanced over at me again. But I had to look away _quick_, or I would have laughed right out. When he got up from the table he said to me: "I shall expect to see you to-morrow in the library at four, Mary." And Mary answered, "Yes, Father," polite and proper, as she should; but Marie inside was just chuckling with the joke of it all. The next day I watched again at four for Father to come up the walk; and when he had come in I went down to the library. He was there in his pet seat before the fireplace. (Father always sits before the fireplace, whether there's a fire there or not. And sometimes he looks _so_ funny sitting there, staring into those gray ashes just as if it was the liveliest kind of a fire he was watching.) As I said, he was there, but I had to speak twice before he looked up. Then, for a minute, he stared vaguely. "Eh? Oh! Ah--er--yes, to be sure," he muttered then, "You have come with your books. Yes, I remember." But there wasn't any twinkle in his eyes, nor the least little bit of an understanding smile; and I _was_ disappointed. I _had_ been looking for it. I knew then, when I felt so suddenly lost and heart-achey, that I had been expecting and planning all day on that twinkly understanding smile. You know you feel worse when you've just found a father and then lost him! And I had lost him. I knew it the minute he sighed and frowned and got up from his seat and said, oh, yes, to be sure. He was just Dr. Anderson then--the man who knew all about the stars, and who had been unmarried to Mother, and who called me "Mary" in an of-course-you're-my-daughter tone of voice. Well, he took my books and heard my lessons, and told me what I was to study next day. He's done that two days now.