To Phoebe, Uncle Bob took on a new and intense interest. Heretofore, he had been just Uncle Bob, stout and jolly and loving, with certain unknown duties at the Court House, and his various homely pastimes at home, such as gardening and puttering about the stable, and hunting worms. But now all at once he seemed different. And Phoebe forgot his stoutness and his baldness in remembering that he was the adoring, yet unhappy, lover. And just as she had watched her father’s face for signs of suffering, she now watched this uncle, discovering sadness in his smiling blue eyes, and yearning even in his whistled tunes as he hammered away at the chicken-coop.

“He loves Miss Ruth,” she pondered. She was doubly tender to him, knowing his secret. And just as she had vowed to thwart any plan of her father’s to marry a second wife, she now gave time to a plot that would bring Miss Ruth to Grandma’s.

Sophie discouraged the idea. “You can’t make Miss Ruth love your Uncle if she don’t,” she asserted. “And—she don’t.”

“I’m going to pray about it,” resolved Phoebe, stoutly.

It meant a new ending to her bedside devotions. First there was that general plea to her Maker, which, she felt, kept her right in her own conscience and in the sight of her fellow-beings. Next came her whispered appeal to her mother, bringing that dear presence poignantly near. The final prayer was as simple as it was heartfelt: “Oh, God, please help Miss Ruth to love my Uncle Bob!”

Yet she never dared broach the matter to her uncle. Other things they discussed most confidentially; for instance, Uncle John.

“When I get educated,” Phoebe wanted to know, “like Uncle John is, will I talk to people like he does, and make them sleepy?”

Uncle Bob roared with laughter, and slapped his knee. “That’s a good one!” he cried. “And down at the Court House, sometimes when I talk a good deal I can put a lawyer to sleep.”

“Lawyers are not nice people,” Phoebe declared. “At least they’re never very nice on the screen.”

She asked him quite frankly about her program of work. “Public school is out, and so is Miss Simpson’s,” she reminded him; “and here I am at lessons every morning.”

“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?”

Phoebe 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 Phoebe. “Oh, Uncle Bob, I want my mother!”

“There! There!” he comforted.

“She died out there alone! Did you all hate her?”

“No! No!”

“What did my mother do that was so bad?”

He made her stand in front of him. “Phoebe,” he began solemnly, “shall I tell you the truth?”

“I want to know.”

“And if I tell you the truth, you’ll never worry about it again?”

“No, I won’t, Uncle Bob.”

“The truth is this:”—looking at her squarely—“your mother just couldn’t do wrong.”

“I love you,” faltered Phoebe, glad and grateful and on the verge of tears—all at the same time.

“If I could only give you back your mother!” went on Uncle Bob, huskily. “To make you happy, there isn’t anything I wouldn’t do—not anything.”

His big chin rested upon his tie. He lost himself in thought, his eyes on the carpet,—they were in the library—his arm about Phoebe.

And then she was reminded all at once of that which could make him happy. For Sophie burst in, her over-curled hair lifting with the speed of her coming, and her eyes dancing with something like mischief.

“Miss Shepard’s callin’, Judge,” she announced.

“Ah!” Uncle Bob sprang up.

“Miss Ruth!” cried Phoebe, joyously.

“Ask Miss Shepard in here, Sophie,” bade Uncle Bob. Then, as Sophie swung herself out, “You love Miss Ruth very much, don’t you, Phoebe?”

“Yes,” answered Phoebe. And then, before she could stop the words, for she was thinking aloud, “So do you.”

“Wha-a-at?” exclaimed Uncle Bob.

“People say so,” defended Phoebe, a little frightened at her own temerity.

Uncle Bob’s face grew suddenly stern. “That’s gossip,” he said shortly.

“I’m sorry.”

He strode to Uncle John’s table and back; then, “That’s all right, old dumpling. Now you go in to Grandma. And remember that Uncle Bob’s going to try to do something that’ll make his dear Phoebe happy. He’s going to try right away—soon—today. For he’s got a plan—a wonderful plan——”

It was Miss Ruth who cut him short. She entered quickly, a little out of breath. And she was pale. “Judge, I’m sorry to trouble you——”

“You never trouble me.” How deep Uncle Bob’s voice could be! Phoebe was standing beside Miss Ruth, her hand in a firm, cool, loving clasp. She watched her uncle narrowly, seeing that what Sophie had told her was true.

“Judge, it’s Manila,” announced Miss Ruth.

“What’s wrong?” asked Uncle Bob.

“Mr. Botts is drinking again. And so—well, you know my neighbor on the other side? She’s very close to the Botts’s. And they’ve got that child locked up, in a room on this side——”

Phoebe drew away from Miss Ruth, and stared up at her. “In prison!” she murmured. Here was another drama, more startling even than this one which concerned Miss Ruth and Uncle Bob’s unrequited love.

Miss Ruth was appealing to Uncle Bob. “My neighbors can hear Manila crying—they heard her in the night, and this morning, too, while it was still dark. Oh, Judge, they say there’s no bed in that room——”

Uncle Bob straightened determinedly. “We’ve got to take that child,” he declared.

“Oh, I’m so glad to hear you say that!” cried Miss Ruth. “Poor, unhappy——”

But Phoebe heard no more. For an idea had come to her, and she had decided to act upon it. Manila was locked up by her cruel step-mother—exactly like some unfortunate waif in a moving-picture story! Uncle Bob meant that Manila should be set free.

“And I’m going to do it,” vowed Phoebe.

She made for the hall door.