Phœbe nodded. “If—if Daddy will please come up to kiss me good-night,” she answered, choking; “and—and put out my light.”
“I’ll tell him, you betcha,” declared Sophie, heartily. She went out, turning her tousled head to smile a good-night.
Phœbe hurried with her undressing. There was no running water in the big room, and she could not bring herself to open her door and call down, or go down, in quest of it. Presently, however, she caught sight of a tall pitcher standing in a wide, flowered bowl, both atop what seemed to be a cupboard. She went to peer into the pitcher. Sure enough! The pitcher was full of water; and Phœbe, using all the strength of her slender arms, heaved it up and out and filled the bowl.
“How funny!” she marveled. And once in bed, with a single electric light shining full into her face from where it hung on a cord from the high center of the ceiling, she studied the room itself, walls, furniture, curtains, carpet. “How queer!” she murmured, over and over.
“Well, big eyes!” hailed her father, when he came in.
She raised on an elbow. “Daddy,” she whispered, “isn’t it so—so different here—everything. Why, in New York nobody has water-pitchers.”
Her father laughed. “This is a wonderful old house,” he declared. He sat down beside her.
“It’s so big!” Phœbe lay back. Her hand crept into her father’s and she looked up at the high ceiling, with its covering of wall-paper in a wavy, watered design.
“You’ll get used to it,” he promised, “and you’ll like it. And do you know how happy Grandma is to have you?—Uncle John and Uncle Bob, too? I can see they love my little girl already.”
“And they’ll love Mother,” added Phœbe, stoutly “You just wait till she comes back well again. Won’t they, Daddy?”