“Phœbe, no!” Miss Ruth stared in amazement.
“Yes! Oh, not more than Daddy, because he’s not a relation. But, Miss Ruth, I love you as much as I do Daddy.”
“And I love you,” said Miss Ruth.
Phœbe dropped to the carpet at Miss Ruth’s knee. “How much?” she asked. “Oh, think hard before you say!”
“I hardly know how much.” She took Phœbe’s face between her hands. “But very, very much.”
“Do you love me so much that you’d do something wonderful for me?—something that would make me the happiest girl in the whole world?”
“What, darling?” Miss Ruth bent close. Her look searched Phœbe’s face.
Phœbe had meant to go on just as Mr. Henry Walthall would have gone on—“Miss Shepard, dear little woman, say Yes to me,” and then add, “Be my mother, and Daddy’s loving wife!” But she forgot how Mr. Walthall had knelt and looked, forgot to be solemn and poised; and completely out of her thoughts went all that she had planned to say. Instead she threw her arms about Miss Ruth, and clung to her wildly. “Oh, you must come with us!” she cried. “We can’t live without you. Daddy adores you! And I do! Oh, Miss Ruth, I think I’ve inherited it!”
Miss Ruth gently freed herself from the hold of the young arms. Then without speaking, she drew back from Phœbe. “My dear,” she said quietly, “who told you to say that?”
Phœbe hesitated. The truth was that Sophie had put the idea of inheritance into Phœbe’s head. Once Phœbe had protested to Sophie her great affection for Miss Ruth. Whereupon Sophie, with a wise nod, had said, “Sure y’ do. You inherited it.”