Transcriber’s Note:
The cover image was created by the transcriber and is placed in the public domain.
PHŒBE
CHAPTER I
“Dear little daughter,” ran the telegram, “whenyou get this, fill a suit-case with a few things thatyou’ll need most, and leave with Daddy for Grandma’s.—Mother.”
The train was already moving. Phœbe, with allthe solemnity of her fourteen years, puckered herbrows over the slip of yellow paper, winked herlong lashes at it reflectively, and pursed a troubledmouth. How strange that dear Mother shouldleave the New York apartment in mid-morning,with the usual gay kiss that meant short separation;and then in that same hour should send thismessage—this command—which was to startPhœbe away from the great city, where all of hershort life had been spent, toward that smaller citywhere lived the Grandmother she had never seen,and the two Uncles—one a Judge and the other a12clergyman—who, though her father’s own brothers,were yet strangers to their only niece!
Somehow, without having to be told, Phœbe hadalways understood that Mother did not like Grandma,or the Uncles, judicial and ecclesiastic. Thenwhy was Mother, without a real farewell, andwithout motherly preparation in the matter ofdress, and with no explanations, sending Phœbe tothose paternal relations?
It was all very strange! It was mysterious, like—yes,like stories Phœbe had seen in moving-pictures.
Out of the gloom and clangor of the great station,the train was now fast winding its way, pastlights that burned, Phœbe thought, like those in thebig basement of the apartment house where shehad lived so long. Now the coach was leaving onepair of rails for a new pair—changing directionwith a sharp clicking of the wheels and a heavyswaying of the huge car’s body. And now the lineof coaches was straightening itself to take, as Phœbeknew, that long plunge under the southward flowingHudson.
She let the telegram fall to her lap and closedher eyes, with a drawing in of the breath. She waspicturing all that lay above the roof