Her uncle halted—abruptly. He brought his two fists up in front of him. He smiled, showing all of his teeth.
“Phœbe!” he cried.
“Yes?” Her eyes were a little fearful.
“Just the one!” He came to sit beside her.
“Who?” She sat very straight.
“Phœbe,”—he took her face between his hands; his kind blue eyes searched hers, shining upon her with infinite love; “Phœbe, how about Miss Ruth?”
She started. “Miss Ruth!” And that moment a strange thing happened to Phœbe. The forbidding step-mother figure which had haunted her so long—the tall, bony, heavy-shouldered woman whose arms were like the arms of a gorilla that Phœbe had once seen at the Zoo in Bronx Park, in New York; that gray-haired, sullen-eyed, formidable, silent creature made out of childish imaginings—now stepped backward, as it were, out of Phœbe’s brain; and to take the place that was left, there came forward Ruth Shepard, a tender smile lighting her eyes and curving her mouth—Ruth Shepard, with hands outstretched.
Phœbe drew a sobbing breath of relief. “She’d be perfect!” she declared. “She loves me, and I love her. And—and Daddy——”
“Phœbe,” went on Uncle Bob, “your daddy loves Miss Ruth.”
Phœbe blinked, trying to understand. “Daddy loves her?”