The blow she awaited fell—twenty-four hours later.

Phoebe spent much of that twenty-four hours in conjectures. And the final and pathetic conclusion to which she came was that she had done something wrong, something “awful bad,” though what it was she could not guess. But whatever it was, it was so terrible that the girls at Miss Simpson’s had turned against her.

And what about Miss Simpson herself? Phoebe understood that Miss Simpson was a personage in the community. Though her school was not the only one of its kind in the place, it was the only one that counted. To be, or not to be, a “Simpson girl” meant, on the one hand, membership in that exclusive very young crowd; on the other, almost complete ostracism from it. Miss Simpson had in her hands (everybody knew it) the social future of the town’s growing girls.

Phoebe’s cry over, Uncle Bob had gone to join his two brothers in the library. A conference began there, Phoebe felt sure; she was certain, too, that she was the subject of it. As she paused at the foot of the stairs—this just outside the library door—she heard Grandma’s voice, too. Grandma was weeping!

Phoebe went up to her room. She stole up, on tiptoe, guiltily. Her brows were puckered, her eyes wide, her lips pursed. She forbore to steady herself by a hand on the banisters, lest they creak.

As she went, she made a resolve. It had to do with Sophie. In a way, of course, Sophie could not be trusted. For though on occasions Sophie seemed to belong on Phoebe’s side—in a dividing of the household which existed only in Phoebe’s mind—at other times the maid swung over to the clique of grown-ups, and Phoebe was left, as it were, on the defence, alone. Yet Phoebe had discovered that now and again it was possible to get information from Sophie. Phoebe’s resolve was to “pump” Sophie.

Arrived in her room, she gave herself up, a second time, to a close scrutiny of herself in the glass. First, she looked at her clothes, feeling that, after all, there was some fault in them (and Uncle Bob, though a Judge, was only a man, after all, and could not competently pass on the matter of a girl’s dress). Having satisfied herself that there was nothing glaringly faulty in her dress, Phoebe took her hand-mirror and went to a window; and seating herself, examined her face, hair and throat—critically, unsparingly.

Once she had asked her mother if she was pretty. And Mother—herself so beautiful!—had answered, with a kiss, “Of course I think so.” But now, Phoebe asked herself, was this quota of hair, features and slender neck considered attractive in the eyes of those who did not love her?

Every freckle and flaw stood out alarmingly in the afternoon light. Phoebe concluded that in point of good looks she brought nothing to Miss Simpson’s School. And as she had no money, like Genevieve Finnegan——

She put down the mirror and went to the closet. In the daytime, she was never afraid to open the door of the closet. That nameless, terrifying Thing which made the place dreaded at night, went higher, after sun-up, so Phoebe believed, to lurk in the cave-like storage places that, sloping of roof, opened off the attic.

She had not many dresses in the closet. She touched each in turn. Then she stood for a few minutes on the threshold of the closet to get a general and comprehensive idea of her little wardrobe. After which, hunting her old doll, she went back to the window to think.

Grandma, weeping—that seemed, to her, the thing most significant. Why was Grandma weeping? “No,” said Phoebe, solemnly, to the doll, “it isn’t my face, and it isn’t my clothes.” For, after all, when it came to looks, Phoebe felt herself to be better looking than, say, Genevieve. And there were two or three other girls at Miss Simpson’s who were, if proud, quite plain. As for clothes, Grandma had no need to feel badly about them; all she had to do was order more!

It was, indeed, a mystery. Phoebe tried to remember any story that resembled hers among all the moving-pictures she had ever seen. She could remember a little girl who stole jam, and another little girl who stole watermelons. But she had taken nothing, had done no wrong wilfully. At that, the tears of self-pity flowed. She hid her face against the doll.

Then—of a sudden—she felt she knew! Prayers! That was it! The girls had discovered, somehow, that Phoebe had only recently learned to pray! She stood up, dropping the doll to the floor.

Mother had never taught her to pray. And once when Phoebe had asked about prayers (having seen two children kneeling beside their father’s chair in a moving-picture), Mother had answered, rather sharply, “I don’t believe in teaching innocent little tots that they’re full of sin. It’s wicked.” But Grandma—when she found that Phoebe did not know “Now I lay me”—Grandma had knelt down beside Phoebe (they were in Phoebe’s room) and implored God to touch Phoebe’s heart, and claim Phoebe’s love. And a day or two later, Uncle John had called Phoebe into the library, where Phoebe had learned “Now I lay me,” and the Lord’s Prayer, and had listened to a very great deal that Uncle John said, the sum and substance of which was that Phoebe’s ignorance in the matter of prayers was so shocking as to be beyond even Uncle John’s power to express. Phoebe gathered further, though her uncle was discreet when it came to naming anyone who should be blamed, that Mother, yes, and Daddy, were equally culpable, and that Phoebe had virtually been snatched from the burning.

So—Phoebe decided—it was the prayers. True, she had prayed faithfully for the past two or three months. But the girls had discovered about the unlucky thirteen years and more that went before!

Something pounded in Phoebe’s throat. And there by the window, one knee on the forgotten doll, she bowed herself....

Later, when she went down to supper, she felt more certain than ever that she was right. It was the prayers! For as she entered the dining-room, guiltily, wistfully, on slow foot, and with lowered look, nobody greeted her cheerily. Her father kissed her, but absent-mindedly. He ate without speaking. Uncle John was silent, too—and stern. Uncle Bob made one or two pathetic attempts to start conversation, but Phoebe could see that even jolly Uncle Bob——! And Grandma, pressing dainties upon Phoebe, and smiling tenderly (with swollen eyes), was plainly anxious and disturbed.

So was Sophie! True, she winked at Phoebe once during the course of the meal. But it was a solemn wink. Her manner was subdued. She moved carefully, rattling no dishes. Phoebe caught the girl’s eyes upon her more than once. Phoebe understood the look—it was all examination, and curiosity.

“Can Sophie take me upstairs?” asked Phoebe, at bedtime. The uncles were back in the library once more, and Phoebe’s father was with them. But there was no sound of argument.

“Are you—lonesome?” returned Grandma. And her head shook very much.

“I’d like to have Sophie go up with me,” Phoebe answered.

But when she and Sophie were upstairs, alone, and the latter had finished her pillow-beating, Phoebe asked no questions. She feared to; and she knew that Sophie would not go without some word, some hint.

It came. “Miss Simpson was in to see your Grammaw this afternoon,”—this casually, with a quick look; then, “Did you know it?”

Phoebe was equally adroit. “She was?” she asked indifferently.

“Yop. I don’t like that woman.”

Sophie went. And Phoebe, left behind in the dark, lay thinking. Miss Simpson had called! Uncle Bob had not mentioned it. Why? And why had Miss Simpson called? What had she told or asked? Phoebe knew that it was this visit which had made Uncle Bob decide against Phoebe’s continuing at the school.

If the five grown men and women in the big rooms below could have known how grievously Phoebe’s ignorance of any part of the real truth was torturing the child, then each, and all, would have hastened up the stairs to that little figure, turning and tossing, as the bewildered brain strove to arrive at facts. For though the facts were bad enough, Phoebe’s guesses were far more terrible. She did not pray, or weep. She lay and planned how she would run away—to Mother.

But she was quite herself in the morning. When she awoke, the sight of branches against her windows—lovely, green, tree-top branches, of sunlight streaming in, the songs of birds coming faintly, and loud cock-crows, all these drove away magically the fear and ache and loneliness of the night.

She remembered that she did not have to go to school—and was glad! Why, it was quite like a Saturday! Freedom, no sermons, no admonitions to be quiet of foot and voice! And had she not heard about some little new ducks that were about to hatch?

She sprang up. She kissed her mother’s photograph with a smiling kiss. She sang over her dressing. She showed a sunny face at the breakfast-table, where Uncle John ate silently, and Uncle Bob sat behind his paper. The night before, what a sense of guilt was hers! It was gone. Her good-morning was merry. She winked back saucily at Sophie’s wink, and ate her oatmeal with good appetite. Grief and fourteen, how short was their stay together! For she was entirely overlooking the fact that this was the day she was intending to run away!

“And what’s my little daughter figuring on doing this morning?” her father asked; “—lucky Phoebe, who doesn’t have to be shut up in school!”

Phoebe thought perhaps the ducks were hatched by now.

“Hatched and swimming in Uncle Bob’s pool,” announced Grandma. “And the poor mother-hen is so worried——!”

At that, Uncle Bob came out from behind his paper—came out like the sun from behind a cloud. And he had another cup of coffee, and threw a violet across the table to Phoebe, and pretended to be shocked at the conduct of the ducks. So that Phoebe laughed, and Grandma and Daddy smiled—yes, even Uncle John smiled. Breakfast was cheerful.

Gray eyes thoughtful, Phoebe fell to contrasting it with breakfasts in New York; the contrast was the sharper when each of Grandma’s three sons pushed back his chair in turn and gave his mother a hearty kiss. What a lot of kissing went on at Uncle Bob’s! Everyone kissed Grandma good-morning and good-night. In New York, Daddy kissed Phoebe, and Mother kissed Phoebe: each other they did not kiss.

Phoebe thought of this again later in the day, when Genevieve came. For it was Genevieve who delivered the blow!