She got down, her eyes solemn. “Uncle Bob,” she confided, “I don’t know what to make of it. But all today, at school, the girls have stared, and stared, and—and whispered. I was sure something was wrong—with my hair, or my dress. And they were too—too polite to tell.”
“Polite, you call ’em!” And Phœbe noted how Uncle Bob’s chest rose, so that the front edges of his coat drew apart. Just over the top of his collar, too, his neck grew scarlet. “Staring and whispering! The ill-bred chits!”
But Phœbe was not angry—only puzzled. “It’s—it’s another mystery,” she said, almost under her breath.
“Say!”—her Uncle came to stand beside her, and he, too, lowered his voice—“do you know, I don’t believe I like that Simpson School! Suppose we just cut it out?”
The light in her eager eyes answered him. She had been wondering just how she could go on at Miss Simpson’s, with the girls acting so queerly, and not asking her to walk home with them, or sit with them under the school arbor during the morning study-hour. “You mean, Uncle Bob,” she breathed incredulously, “that I won’t have to go to Miss Simpson’s any more?”
“Well, something on that order.” The Judge smiled a wide, tooth-revealing smile.
But his news was too good to be true. “Has Daddy said so?” she wanted to know.
“He hasn’t, but I’ve a strong idea that he will.”
“Oh, I’m glad!” She took a deep breath. “Because, Uncle Bob, I’ve felt—well, so queer at school for several days. You know—uneasy.”
He nodded. “I know.” And more confidentially, leaning down to say it, “I’ve heard of other girls—oh, extra fine girls—who felt exactly like you do about Miss Simpson’s.”