"This much you understand, doubtless. Now, Mary, what you object to is that our society offers you, and the others like you, no convincing logic on the side of waiting until age nineteen. It is all taken for granted, and you want to know why! It is that simple. A non-technical explanation will not suffice--mercy no! The modern child wants facts, solid technical data, to satisfy her every question. And that, as you can both see, will take a good deal of reorganizing." "But--" said Mary. "The child is upset, nervous, tense; she acts strange, peculiar, odd, worries you and makes herself ill because it is beyond our meagre powers to put it across. I tell you, what we need is a whole new basis for learning. And, that will take doing. It will take _doing_, Mrs. Cuberle. Now, don't you worry about Mary, and don't _you_ worry, child. I'll prescribe some pills and--" "No, no, doctor! You're all mixed up," cried Mrs. Cuberle. "I beg your pardon, Madam?" "What I mean is, you've got it wrong. Tell him, Mary, tell the doctor what you told me." Mary shifted uneasily in the chair. "It's that--I don't want it." The doctor's well-proportioned jaw dropped. "Would you please repeat that?" "I said, I don't want the Transformation." "D--Don't want it?" "You see? She told me. That's why I came to you." The doctor looked at Mary suspiciously. "But that's impossible! I have never heard of such a thing. Little girl, you are playing a joke!" Mary nodded negatively. "See, doctor. What can it be?" Mrs. Cuberle rose and began to pace. The doctor clucked his tongue and took from a small cupboard a black box covered with buttons and dials and wire. "Oh no, you don't think--I mean, could it?" "We shall soon see." The doctor revolved a number of dials and studied the single bulb in the center of the box. It did not flicker. He removed handles from Mary's head. "Dear me," the doctor said, "dear me. Your daughter is perfectly sane, Mrs. Cuberle." "Well, then what is it?" "Perhaps she is lying. We haven't completely eliminated that factor as yet; it slips into certain organisms." More tests. More machines and more negative results. Mary pushed her foot in a circle on the floor. When the doctor put his hands to her shoulders, she looked up pleasantly. "Little girl," said the handsome man, "do you actually mean to tell us that you _prefer_ that body?" "Yes sir." "May I ask why." "I like it. It's--hard to explain, but it's me and that's what I like. Not the looks, maybe, but the _me_." "You can look in the mirror and see yourself, then look at--well, at your mother and be content?" "Yes, sir." Mary thought of her reasons; fuzzy, vague, but very definitely there. Maybe she had said the reason. No. Only a part of it. "Mrs. Cuberle," the doctor said, "I suggest that your husband have a long talk with Mary." "My husband is dead. That affair near Ganymede, I believe. Something like that."