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There was something else which Phœbe did not understand. Walking, mittened and warmly clad, over the snow-crusted half-acre of Grandma’s garden, she gave herself up to conjecture. Or in the sitting-room, with Grandma seated nearby, sewing, she puzzled her small head. And when she drove with Uncle Bob into the country, through lanes of naked trees that edged bare fields, she studied his big, good-natured face and wished that she might open her heart and ask him all about it.

That something else which she did not understand was this: a strict watch was being kept upon her—almost as if in fear!

Why? Did they, her father, and her uncles and grandmother, think that, missing her mother, she might run away to New York? Or was it that they guessed how terribly she longed for her mother, and made sure that she should never be left alone? But—if they were sparing her loneliness, why was she not sent to school every day, like other children whom she saw clattering along the sidewalk that ran just outside the high hedge? Or why were children not asked into the big Blair garden to play with her? And why did Daddy, who for years had been so busy with his work that he could seldom give her more than a very occasional afternoon, why was he putting aside all work now in order to stay there with her—particularly since Mother, ill and alone, assuredly needed him if she could not have Phœbe?

There were other curious things. She was never permitted to go downtown unless her father accompanied her. She was never allowed to drive alone with Grandma. She might not go to Sunday school or church with Uncle John. And at last she was able to see that a certain iron rule obtained concerning her movements: she could not play in the garden unless Uncle Bob or Daddy was home; and she could not leave Grandma’s to walk or drive unless her father or an uncle was in the surrey.

It was all very puzzling.

When people called, Phœbe did not meet them. Sophie, suddenly grown enthusiastic over some ordinary household matter, hurried her upstairs, or down cellar, as the case might be; or took her egg-hunting to the tall frame chicken-house standing in the back lot.

If the attic received them, Sophie kept a watch upon the garden from the tiny attic window; and as soon as the visitors took their leave, Sophie’s interest in the top of the house promptly melted, and Phœbe was coaxed away from the fascinating boxes and barrels that filled the room, and led down to the sitting-room and Grandma. If on the approach of callers Sophie found pressing reasons for going down into the cellar, and taking Phœbe along, the watch that was set on the attic window was transferred to the ceiling of the cellar. For Sophie kept turning her face up at it inquiringly, kept an ear cocked toward that corner of it which was under the wide entrance hall. And when a dull thump announced the shutting of the front door, Sophie invariably found herself ready and eager to leave the cellar for other duties higher up.

“Why don’t I ever meet anybody?” Phœbe pondered.

Her mind dwelt on certain dark, dramatic possibilities. In New York, how freely had she tasted of that—to her—most perfect of all joys—the moving-pictures. She went to some temple of the silent play three or four times every week—sometimes with her mother, but more often with her mother’s black maid. Oh, the never lessening lure of the film dramas! The grip of them! The beauty of their heroines! The masterful, handsome heroes in them! The villains always foiled! The maidens consistently saved! Oh, Dustin Farnum! Oh, lovely, dainty Marguerite Clark! Oh, gun-handling, stern and adorable William S. Hart!

And now, her imagination trained, Phœbe, as she considered conditions as she saw them, asked herself if, perhaps, Daddy and the others were not in fear of enemies! of kidnappers! of Mexican bandits! And this new hazard soon came to seem the logical, then the probable, then the true thing.

From a cautious attitude, she changed to actual fear. She began each day with a careful look from her windows, scanning the grounds, the hedges. Once in the open, she looked for foot-prints on the walks leading up to the house. She was always on the alert. And a new look came into the gray-blue eyes—a look of anxious questioning.

It was bad enough in the daytime. But at night she suffered, and dreaded the going-down of the sun. Toward evening she set herself one task: the lowering of her curtains, but more particularly the curtains of the sitting-room—against the peering in of faces! As twilight came, it seemed to her that the big house gathered into itself more dwellers than just the half-dozen of which she was one. They were up in the attic, these strange visitors, or down in the cellar, or in the closet under the stairs. In her own room at bedtime, having glanced under her four-poster, she locked her clothes-closet against Something which she felt was lurking therein. While before she fell asleep, or if she waked in the still hours, she held her breath and listened—listened. Sometimes there were snappings; sometimes softer sounds came to her, like the creeping of stealthy feet. In the blackness, white shapes sprang up before even her tight-closed eyes—sprang up, wavered, swelled, melted. She covered her head. Never was one small hand left free, lest it be taken by one unknown and clammy!

How she longed to find out about it all, to tell some one all her terrors. Often at night she determined to go boldly to her father the very next morning. Just as often the light of the new day withered her resolution. “If only Mother were here,” she told herself. It was easy to confide anything to Mother. But she shrank from opening her heart to her father. What she wanted to know he knew, and could tell her if he wanted her to know.

Then she thought of Sophie. Uncle Bob was not a remote possibility, but Sophie was even more approachable. Phœbe broached her subject diplomatically. “I don’t see many people here, do I?” she inquired.

It was so casual that Sophie had no inkling of what lay beneath the innocent question. “You don’t lose much, neither,” was the grunted rejoinder. (Sophie held local society in high disdain.)

“I knew lots of ladies and gentlemen in New York,” Phœbe went on. “Because Mother has so many friends—beautiful ladies, that wear beautiful clothes. And gentlemen who are rich, and have cars, and bring me candy and things.”

Sophie was keenly interested. They were in Phœbe’s own room on this particular occasion (Phœbe feeling instinctively that she could get better results on her own territory), and Sophie was so eager to hear about New York, and the apartment, and the ladies, and the men, that she sat down, and asked many questions, only stopping, now and then, to go to the door to look out.

And Phœbe, nothing loath, answered every question—and more. So that Sophie was given a very fair and truthful account of life in the metropolitan apartment—that is, of the life that Phœbe saw between her early waking and her early bedtime.

At the end of this long talk, Sophie was summoned downstairs by Grandma’s hand-bell, a round, squat affair, like a school-teacher’s bell, which stood on a little table at the foot of the stairs. And a few minutes later, Phœbe, who had trailed down after the maid, came upon her in the library. Sophie was standing close to Grandma, and talking very low; and when Phœbe entered, the two moved apart, somewhat hastily, and Sophie smiled a conscious smile, and looked a little guilty, and began to talk more loudly than was necessary about her duties.

In that moment, Phœbe realized herself cut off from the one being in that big house of grown-ups with whom she had been making ready to share her little confidences. For now it was plain that Sophie could not be trusted.

One thought did not come to Phœbe, namely, that the strict watch kept upon her had anything to do with her mother.

If the thought had occurred, whom could she have asked? From the very first night of her arrival Phœbe had discovered that Grandma—dear, gentle Grandma, with her mild old eyes and her trembling head—did not care to talk to Phœbe about Mother. Neither did Uncle Bob, who was always so ready to chatter boyishly about all other matters that seemed of interest to his niece. As for Uncle John, she never considered mentioning Mother to him. For one day she had left Mother’s photograph on the mantelpiece in the sitting-room, and coming for it, she had seen Uncle John with the picture in his hand. When he discovered Phœbe beside him, he stared down at her, and the look in his eyes was not good to see. His lips were drawn back from his shut teeth, too,—as if he were enraged at the photograph. He almost flung it down, and went out with no word.

Phœbe understood. Mother had never liked these three who belonged to Daddy. Naturally, these three did not like Mother. Even for a girl of fourteen that was simple enough.

And Daddy—Phœbe understood that if she mentioned her mother to her father, the smile on his face, the light in his eyes, went instantly. And understanding that, she had come to speak seldom to him of the one whose absence was a constant hurt, an ache, a burden.

And now Sophie might not be taken into her confidence. For Sophie, voice lowered and tousled head bobbing close to Grandma’s, had been telling over all that Phœbe had told to her. Yes, telling it all over—and what else? For Grandma’s face, as Phœbe caught sight of it, was pale and stern, and her eyes were wide open and angry behind the round panes of her gold-rimmed spectacles.

Thereafter Phœbe drew more and more into herself. And what she had to confide, she confided to the big old doll that had come with her from New York, packed between two middy-blouses in the suit-case. The big old doll slept with her, too, in the wide bed. And for added comfort, Phœbe put the photograph under her pillow of nights. When the light was out and the covers over her head, she drew the photograph forth and laid her cheek upon it. Cool it was, and smooth, like the open palm of her mother’s hand. And held close, thus, it gave forth a faint perfume—a perfume which Mother had used—which brought Mother near in the dark of the big room—which brought the tears, too, the wearisome sobbing that at last, in turn, brought sleep; and sleep brought dreams—dear dreams of that loved, perfumed presence that now, at times, seemed scarcely more than the figure in a dream.

Phœbe had left New York just after the Christmas holidays—holidays packed with joys as they had never before been packed. For apart from the usual tree with the usual gifts, there had been other things—a horseback ride on a horse that belonged to one of Mother’s men friends; a score of drives in a wonderful limousine that was all blue without and a soft sand-color within, and ran as if shod with velvet, though with the strength, Mother said, of eighty horses! And there was a symphony concert, too, in Carnegie Hall, to which whole flocks of children came, and to which Phœbe wore her very best of all white dresses; and there was an afternoon at the Opera, where Mother had wonderful seats in a box which Phœbe understood cost a fortune, and Phœbe saw a great curtain lift to display castles, and forests, soldiers, knights and princesses. And, of course, there was that supremest of joys—the “movies.” In the holidays the “movies” were an everyday delight.

How she longed for them!

However, in the big house she spoke of them only to Sophie, and then in undertones. But in this matter, as in her separation from her mother, she was not to any degree submissive. Her silence indicated that she was; but she was merely biding her time.

It was in January that Phœbe came to the big house. And the something which she did not understand—that being watched, and passed from hand to hand, and kept apart from other children, and out of school—obtained through all the rest of the first month of the new year, and through February and into March.

Then, one day, a sudden change! A quick, bewildering, inexplicable, happy change!

First of all, to herald it, Uncle John telephoned a Miss Simpson, who conducted a school for young ladies, and held a long and animated conversation with that lady—a conversation in which “my niece” and “Phœbe” figured frequently. Next, Daddy appeared with an unclouded face, and sat down at the cottage-organ in Grandma’s sitting-room and played a little, and sang a song or two, Uncle Bob joining in. Next, wonder of wonders, Phœbe was sent to the nearest drug-store two blocks away, to get something for Grandma—and she was allowed to go by herself!

What had happened?

She did not find out.

This important news, however, she gleaned from her father: Mother was now in New York no longer; she had gone West.

“Isn’t Mother any better, Daddy?” she asked anxiously.

“We hope she will be,” he answered.

“Did you have a letter?” Phœbe wanted to know.

“Yes, I got the news in a letter.”

A wave of scarlet swept up Phœbe’s young throat and bathed the earnest little face. News of Mother—from Mother! It choked her, it was all so wonderful. For had not Mother, for a long time, failed to send any word to her and Daddy?

“Oh, a letter?” breathed Phœbe, and there was sweet entreaty in the young eyes.

Her father began to thrust his hands into his pockets, as if searching, just as he had done on occasions before. Finding no letter, he slapped each pocket with the flat of a hand. He had colored, too. And his forehead was puckered, and he blinked.

“Can’t you find it?” breathed Phœbe.

“Well!—Thought I had it. Mm! Sorry. Must’ve laid it down somewhere.”

He did not find the letter. But Phœbe was comforted by knowing it had come. Mother was West, in a city built high above the sea. There she would improve—speedily. So the best thing to do was to wait patiently. And while she waited—go to school!

The school was Miss Simpson’s. It was not a school, really, as Phœbe discovered the first day. It was a house—a house very like Grandma’s.

Of course there were differences. At Miss Simpson’s, for instance, the cellar held a great iron monster-thing with which Phœbe felt on friendly terms. This monster was the boiler, which sent steam-heat to all the various rooms.

There was no boiler in Grandma’s cellar, which was broad and high, brick-floored, and walled with cobble-stones. It contained, of course, a coal-bin. And there were other bins that Miss Simpson’s cellar could not boast—bins for potatoes, and turnips. And Miss Simpson had no shelves full of pickles and preserves, and shining cans of lard, no beams from which hung corn and onions and peppers, and hams in their sacking, and smoked bacon in a wrapping of paraffine-paper. She had no pumpkins piled yellowly in one corner, with green cabbages close beside. And where were her pork barrels ranged in a row, topped by tubs holding the eggs that had been “put down,” and the winter supply of butter?

But Miss Simpson’s cellar was much nicer than Grandma’s. For it was just like a New York basement!

Elsewhere, too, Phœbe felt the school to be infinitely more attractive than the Blair home. It was new, it was (Miss Simpson herself said it) modern, and it was built all of brick. Genevieve Finnegan, a girl of Phœbe’s own age, declared that Miss Simpson’s house was stylish; while a teacher, touching on architecture one day, proudly catalogued it as “very English.”

Phœbe did not understand in just what way the school was “very English,” but she did come to realize, through Genevieve, that whatever very English might be, it was something much to be desired for any house. As for Grandma’s residence, well, Genevieve was politely scornful.

Phœbe readily understood why.

The Blair house had gone up when Uncle John was a baby, and was typical, in its architecture, of the best suburban houses of those remote times. It had towers—two of them—round and shingled, with points that held lightning-rods. It had fancy cornices, too, and trimmings that were considered marvels of beauty when they were new. Now Genevieve referred to them as “ginger bread.” And it had green blinds on its many windows—blinds that had rattled in all the storms of the passing years, but were still intact, testifying to the wood and workmanship of that period of the long-ago.

But the house was “old-fashioned.” There was no concealing it—everybody in town knew it. Once, in the days when the Blair house was new, it had stood all to itself, in the center of what was known as Blair Farm. The farm had been cut up into lots later on. Then the big, lonely house had, as it were, drawn the town lovingly to it, and had taken its place as a sort of landmark, rearing its unfashionable turrets among very up-to-date structures. Genevieve and her mamma, and her papa, together with five servants, were dwellers in one of these structures. Genevieve referred to her home—carelessly—as a “chalet.”

There was nothing to be said in criticism of Miss Simpson’s—even though it was not a chalet. Genevieve declared, and other girls upheld her, that Miss Simpson’s was so unusually splendid in the way of interior woods, marbled entrance hall, frescoed ceilings and the like that the man who had put it up had “gone broke.” Genevieve said it boastfully. How much further, indeed, could any man go who was putting up a house than to go broke?

Phœbe was convinced.

She was quick to admit to herself that, interiorly at least, there was much to be desired in the way of improvements at Grandma’s. If the big Blair house was not comparable to Miss Simpson’s, it was also far from coming up to the standard of apartments in New York. For example, consider the wall-paper on Grandma’s ceilings, and the colored glass in certain of Grandma’s doors. Crayon reproductions of family photographs were not at all “the thing,” Phœbe knew and Genevieve averred. Neither were wax flowers modish—and Grandma had so many frames of them! And then there was that little item of lace curtains. Phœbe did not have to be told that nobody who really knew would, in these later and wiser times, go out and buy lace curtains.

Phœbe did not see the upper floors of Miss Simpson’s; but the street floor was proof of what might be expected at the top of the graceful stairway. How beautiful the great drawing-room was, with its satin-wood walls, carved and bracketed for silk-covered shades. How deep the great rugs were in all the big downstairs rooms! And there were velvet couches on either side of the library fire, and here, before a glowing hearth, Miss Simpson gathered her girls of an afternoon for the function of tea. The maid who served the tea wore a cap. And on no account did she ever lift her eyes to smile, as Sophie smiled. What was most important, this maid referred to Miss Simpson as “Madam.” And Phœbe knew this was most proper and desirable. For Sally had always called Mother “Madam.” If Phœbe had not known about all this, Genevieve would have been the one to teach her, Genevieve being a stickler for all that was proper and—fashionable.

Phœbe came to look upon the tea-function at Miss Simpson’s as a rare privilege. This was because only a certain very small group of girls in town might share the opportunity of attending that daily function. For Miss Simpson’s School, as Uncle John had said, and as had been borne out architecturally and otherwise—Miss Simpson’s School was most exclusive.

Freed from long weeks of loneliness, Phœbe welcomed the School with delight. She felt it rightful that she should be there, too. For was not her Uncle John the most fashionable rector in town? Was not her Uncle Bob a Judge?—that he was Judge of the new Court for Juveniles subtracting only a little from the honors that were his. And was not her father, her dear, gallant, handsome father, a mining-engineer? And were not mining-engineers in the same class, socially, as doctors, and lawyers, and bankers, and mayors of the city? Genevieve said so.

So Phœbe, welcomed to the School by Miss Simpson, received into the exclusive tea circle before that library fire, and made one of a little “set” of pupils out of well-to-do families—Phœbe began to feel at home in this small, new city, to fret less for the dear mother who was taking such a long time to get well, and to put behind her all thoughts of the something which she had not understood. In fact, Phœbe was coming to be almost patient, almost happy and contented once more.

And then, one morning, with the same suddenness that had found her free of restraint and bewildering conjectures, there came another change.

How it came she scarcely knew. Why it came, she had no idea. It was there—all about her—like the air; no, more like an obscuring smoke. She could not see what was wrong. But she could feel. Phœbe curtsied to Miss Simpson and that august principal did not smile. And there were other signs—signs that struck a chill to Phœbe’s tender heart.

Phœbe did not ask any questions. New Year’s Day had ended a wonderful life. This new life was baffling; full of cruel blows. “Submit,” counseled a still, small voice; “submit, and wait for Mother.”

The hot tears stung the gray-blue eyes. Phœbe blinked them away, opened her Physical Geography, and smiled bravely at a picture of a chimpanzee climbing a cocoanut tree.

Phœbe smiled—but she awaited a new blow.