The suit-case packed, Phoebe sat down upon it—to think. She had known even as she took down and folded her dresses that she could not really run away. But the packing had served as a physical relief to her mental anguish. Also, she had hoped in her secret heart that she might be discovered at her packing!—discovered and comforted; more: the ready suit-case, the threatened departure by night, alone, might bring her father and her uncles to believe that the wisest thing they could do would be to send her to her mother. Oh, how she longed for her mother!

The tears came then, and she wept, her head bowed upon her knees. Divorce! Never again the dear apartment with mother and Daddy—the beloved home-nest, with its ivory woodwork and rose hangings, its perfumed warmth, and beauty and cosiness. Her mother and father were to be forever apart—forever!

Sorrow broke over her like a wave. “Forever!” she wept. “Forever!” There was something almost delicious about the very force and keenness of her grief. She was going through a crisis such as she had seen pictured upon the screen. And the very word Forever augmented her suffering and that sense of curious gratification in the undergoing of such agony.

So again and again she went back over the cause of her weeping. Divorce! They were to be separated during all the coming years, those two whom she loved so dearly. Never again might she have them together, with her, one at each hand. Always now there would be the pain of having Mother gone if she, Phoebe, was with Daddy; of having Daddy gone if she was with Mother. Always it would be like that—like now.

And then her resentment rose against those two loved ones. “Oh, what’s the matter with them! What’s the matter with them!” she burst out. That father who seemed so gallant and fine—how could her mother bear to be away from him? And Mother, beautiful, sweet, altogether adorable—what more did her father ask? They were through with each other! Oh, why? And then, melting once more, Oh, how could she bear it! Oh, Mother! Mother!—Oh, dear Daddy!

Next, of a sudden, a more terrible thought: Would the divorce of her parents mean that she might not be allowed to see her mother again?

The very possibility brought her to her feet and out of the closet. “No! I won’t stand it!” she cried. “I must have Mother! I won’t stay here! I won’t! I won’t!”

She was immediately all resolution. She washed her face. Then she took off the dress she was wearing—her grandmother had bought it—and opening the suit-case, chose and put on a dress of her mother’s buying. Thus fortified, as it were, in something that had been touched by hands dear beyond expression, she descended to the library. She hoped all the grown-ups would be there on her arrival. She longed to announce defiantly her plan to leave.

But—only Uncle John was in the room, leaned, as always, over his papers and his great flat-topped table. He did not speak; did not even look up—as Phoebe advanced to a stand before the large map of the United States which hung above the bookcases at one side of the room.

Ah, what a great distance lay between! Here, a small dot and small letters showed the position of the town where she was; there, a larger dot and larger letters marked the spot where Mother had gone.

Standing before the map, with face raised, once more anger possessed her—a fierce anger—against this town in which she was, against everyone in it. There had been a time when she had fretted because she could not go about like other girls, and meet people; now she felt she did not want to go anywhere, did not want to meet anyone, know anyone, make any friends!

They did not like her mother? They talked against her mother? Very well. They need not like her, either. They could talk against her if they wanted to!

Her resentment demanded action. There was a drug-store down the street, two blocks away. To reach it from the Blair front gate, one had to pass a dozen houses. There were always people on the porches of those houses, or on the lawns. Phoebe went upstairs for her New York hat, and for her purse. There was ice-cream soda to be had at the drug-store, and sundaes of every description. Phoebe liked them. But they were not, just then, first in her thoughts. Did Genevieve Finnegan, and others like her, expect Phoebe Shaw Blair to hide herself away in Grandma’s big house? To weep alone at slights? “From such small-town people?” raged Phoebe, as she slammed the front door. Did they think she would act as if she were ashamed of her mother?

Her hat on the back of her head, her head in the air, Phoebe let herself out of the front gate and started for the drug-store. And on the way, she passed every one of those dozen houses without so much as a glance!

It was a pleasure to do that. She arrived at the drug-store in great good humor. She felt that she had done something for Mother!

She was in a reckless mood. She enjoyed one soda and two ice-creams. She ignored the pretty young woman who waited upon her. When she started homeward, she went with a light step and a high chin. She wished she had a dog to lead. Not that she cared for dogs—she was afraid of them. But if she were leading a dog, he would be an excuse for running, and calling out happily. That was what she most wished to do—call out happily, and skip—just to show all those gaping neighbors how little she cared!

She compromised on a rubber ball. It was an inspiration! The moment she stepped upon the front porch, here was Uncle Bob, dragging the lawn-mower behind him. She explained that she had spent every cent she had at the drug-store. At any other time she would have hesitated to confess that even to Uncle Bob. But now she was suddenly indifferent even about what he thought.

And Uncle Bob, seeing her cheeks so pink and her eyes so full of fire, dropped the handle of the lawn-mower as if it were red-hot, and emptied one pocket of its silver. “God bless me!” he cried. “A rubber ball’s a great idea! And if you see anything else you like——”

Phoebe took the silver and was off like a shot. She knew the store that carried toys. She went without a pause to the toy-counter. There were other things that she liked,—as Uncle Bob had suggested—plenty of them. But for them she had no time. She bought the ball,—a large, gun-metal affair with a ridge around it like an Equator. She paid for it with a proud air, not even deigning to look at the clerk. No, she did not care to have it wrapped. And even while the man was sending away to make change for the half dollar she had given him, she proceeded to bounce the ball.

She bounced it all the way home, not taking her eyes from it. She ran; she skipped. For her purpose, the ball was precisely as good as the best dog would have been. As she played, she knew people were passing her on the sidewalk; or from porch or lawn were watching her pass. But she was completely absorbed.

After that, every day for many days she went at least once to the drug-store. And she bounced the ball both ways!