“And when will Mother come?” interposed Phœbe, with an intonation which made plain her opinion that it would certainly take mother to make the suburban picture complete.
“Phœbe,” said her father, speaking with a new earnestness, “Mother is not very well, and she is planning to leave New York for a while, and go where she can get better.”
“I know she isn’t very well,” agreed Phœbe. “She coughs too much.”
“Exactly. You know, Mother’s health hasn’t been good for quite a while——”
“I know.”
“And she must have the change. I didn’t want to have you go, dear, to a strange city, where your mother has no friends, and might be very ill. So away you go to Grandma’s till everything is straightened out. And you’ll—— Oh, look at that automobile!—there! It’s keeping up with the train! My! My! but that’s considerable speeding!”
They talked of other things then,—of the homes past which they were rushing, the towns through which they glided and grandly ignored, except for a gingerly slowing down. Noon came, and with it a visit to the dining-car. Then the afternoon dragged itself along. Toward the latter half of it, Phœbe, worn by the excitement of the sudden departure, and lulled by the motion of the train, curled up on the green plush of the car seat and fell asleep, her short brown hair spread fanwise upon her father’s shoulder.
The afternoon went; twilight came. Still the train rushed on, carrying Phœbe northward toward that new home awaiting her. She slept a second time, after a simple supper. Her journey was to end shortly before midnight. For this reason her father judged it best that a berth should not be made up for her, but that she should rest as she had in the afternoon, her head on his breast.
She smiled as she slept, blissfully unaware that all at once her happy life was changing; that she was being uprooted like some plant; that a tragedy of which she was as yet mercifully ignorant had come forward upon her, wave-like and overwhelming, to sweep her forever from her course!