Phœbe raised an eager face. “I’d like to have you, too. Because,”—her voice faltered—“oh, it takes an awful lot of love to—to make up for my mother.”
“I won’t fail to come.” Miss Ruth left then, and Phœbe, with Uncle Bob beside her, stood at the wide glass door of the sitting-room, watching the gray dress flutter its way, mistily, across the lawn to the driveway gate.
“Well, little Phœbe?” said the Judge. He had her hand, and he squeezed it.
Phœbe understood. “Uncle Bob,” she confided, “I like her. And I wish she lived here right with us.”
Judge Blair nodded. “Ah, that’s what I’ve been saying,” he answered; “yes, I’ve been saying that for years, and years—and years.”
CHAPTER XI
Phœbe thought about that, wondering what Uncle Bob meant. Something kept her from asking him. Was it the strange look on his face as he watched Miss Ruth go? Or was it the way in which he went out, hands stuffed in pockets, head down, grave—curiously unlike his usual smiling self? And how did he want Miss Ruth to live at Grandma’s? As a sort of helper, like Sophie? That was not likely. Perhaps Miss Ruth boarded nearby, and Uncle Bob wanted her to board at the Blair house. Phœbe made up her mind to ask Sophie, source of all confidential information. She stored up Uncle Bob’s last words so that she could not fail to remember them: “Yes, I’ve been saying that for years, and years,—and years.”
But before her opportunity came to question Sophie, and while she was still watching out in the direction Miss Ruth had gone, she saw a strange little figure coming across the grass—coming slowly, in fact almost sidling, with glances up at the higher windows of the house, and those formidable gingerbread turrets.
At first Phœbe was sure that it was a boy, all dressed up grotesquely, as New York boys dressed themselves every Thanksgiving Day. For surely (the figure was close now) no young person ever could have real hair that was so red, or wear a hat, except in fun, that was so queer and green. And then the dress—too loose, and too long. And the shoes—! So large!
Suddenly Phœbe’s heart gave a leap. It was not a dressed-up boy: It was a girl! “A girl in disguise!” concluded Phœbe, excitedly, with moving-picture plots springing to her mind. “And she’s flying from the enemy!”