Quickly Sophie averted her eyes. “I wouldn’t say that,” she declared. “Why, no! Y’ see, it’s this way: two of ’em here thinks the same about it, dearie. Your grammaw and the Judge thinks a little girl is always best off when she’s with her mother. I heard the Judge say so, and his maw agreed. But your Uncle John——”
Phœbe drew in a long, trembling breath. Then, “I hate him!” she declared. “Because he hates my mother.”
“You spoke the truth that time,” continued Sophie. “He married your mamma to Mister Jim, but he didn’t like her—never. Oh, he’s all on your paw’s side.”
“You mean that Daddy——?”
“Your daddy don’t say what he thinks,” reminded Sophie. “But I guess your mamma done somethin’ that made him pretty mad.”
Phœbe longed to know what, to ask about it. Yet she shrank from having Sophie tell her anything that might be in the slightest degree against her mother.
“I don’t know what it was,” Sophie went on. “But it got so bad between ’em that there just had to be a split-up. Course your Uncle John’s dead against divorces, bein’ a minister. The ’Piscopal Church is like that. And I kinda believe your father thinks the same way. But your Uncle Bob and your grammaw say that if a married couple ain’t happy they oughta sep’rate, and be done with it, and not quarrel around where there’s a child.”
Phœbe knelt, and put a hand under Sophie’s chin. “Tell me:” she begged; “When Daddy and Mother are divorced, what do you think is going to happen to me?”
“We-e-ell,”—Sophie considered the question, pursing her mouth and blinking.
“Oh, now!” challenged Phœbe, impatiently. “What do they all say?”