“You’ll be just so much ahead of everybody else,” returned Uncle Bob. “And why waste the time? Pile up the good work while Daddy’s gone. Now! now! What’s that? A little tear?”
Phœbe nodded. “Lately, when I shut my eyes, I can’t see Daddy’s face any more. He seems such a long way off. Just see where Peru is on the map!”
“I know, darling. It’s hard.”
She looked around—to make sure they were alone. “If—if I only had my mother,” she whispered. “Uncle Bob, are there a lot of girls in the world without mothers?”
He nodded. “Too many.”
“Sometimes it seems as if I can’t stand it,” she confessed. “My throat twists up,—right here—and it aches. I wake in the night, and I pretend that she’s close to me——”
“Maybe she is.”
“No; because I hold out my arms.”
Uncle Bob drew her close. “Ah, you’re lonely!”
“I want my mother,” whispered Phœbe. “Oh, Uncle Bob, I want my mother!”