so vividly." Then he turned and looked at me. "You are very like your
mother to-night, dear."

"I suppose I am, maybe, when I'm Marie," I nodded.

He laughed with his lips, but his eyes didn't laugh one bit as he
said:

"What a quaint little fancy of yours that is, child--as if you were
two in one."

"But I am two in one," I declared. "That's why I'm a cross-current and
a contradiction, you know," I explained.

I thought he'd understand. But he didn't. I supposed, of course, he
knew what a cross-current and a contradiction was. But he turned again
and stared at me.

"A--_what_?" he demanded.

"A cross-current and a contradiction," I explained once more.
"Children of unlikes, you know. Nurse Sarah told me that long ago.
Didn't you ever hear that--that a child of unlikes was a cross-current
and a contradiction?"

"Well, no--I--hadn't," answered Father, in a queer, half-smothered
voice. He half started from his seat. I think he was going to walk up
and down, same as he usually does. But in a minute he saw he couldn't,
of course, with all those people around there. So he sat back again in
his chair. For a minute he just frowned and stared at nothing; then he