“Why do you say that?” Sheba asked. “Why do you look so—so puzzled, Uncle Tom?”
“Well,” said Tom, holding her out at arm’s length before him, “the truth is, I’ve suddenly realised something. I’d like to know what I’m to do with this!”
“This?” laughed Sheba. “Am I ‘this’? You look at me as if I was ‘this’.”
“You are,” Tom answered, ruefully. “Here you suddenly change to a young woman on a man’s hands. Now, what am I to do with a grown-up young woman? I’m used to babies, and teething, and swallowing kangaroos out of Noah’s arks—and I know something of measles and letting tucks out of frocks; but when it comes to a beautiful young woman, there you have me!”
He shook his head as he ended, and, though his face wore the affectionate, humorous smile which had never failed her, there was a new element in its kindness which, it must be confessed, bordered on bewilderment.
“A beautiful, grown-up young woman,” he said, glancing reflectively over her soft, swaying slimness, her white frock with its purple ribbon and golden jonquils, and up to her tender cheek.
Sheba blushed with sweet delight.
“Am I beautiful, Uncle Tom?” she inquired, with a lovely anxiousness in her eyes.
“Yes, you are,” admitted Tom; “and it isn’t a drawback to you, Sheba, but it’s likely to make trouble for me.”
“But why?” she said.