"Be sure, yes," agreed Granny Hogendobler; "it don't do to be too strict."
"Mebbe so," said the other women, with various shades of understanding in their words.
Phœbe looked gratefully into the face of Granny Hogendobler, then she turned to David's mother and spoke to her as though there were no others present in the room.
"You know, don't you, how little girls like to play? You called me precious child just like she would——"
"She would," repeated Aunt Maria. "What do you mean?"
"I mean my mother," she explained and turned again to her champion. "I was just thinking this after on the garret that I'd like you for my mother, to adopt you for it like people do with children when they have none and want some. I hear lots of people call you Aunty Bab—dare I call you Mother Bab?"
The woman laid a hand on the child's tumbled hair. Her voice trembled as she answered, "Yes, Phœbe, you can call me Mother Bab. I have no little girl so you may fill that place. Now ask Aunt Maria if you should wash your face and get fixed right again."
"Shall I, Aunt Maria?"
"Yes. Go get cleaned up. Fold all them clothes right and put 'em in the trunk and put your hair in two plaits again. If you're big enough to do such dumb things you're big enough to comb your hair." And Aunt Maria, peeved and hurt at the child's behavior, went back to her quilting while Phœbe hurried from the room alone.
The child scrubbed the three layers of decoration from her face, trudged up the stairs to the attic, took off the rose-sprigged gown and folded it away—a disconsolate, disillusioned prima donna.