During the next half hour, Phebe parted with most of her theories and all of her temper.  In the first place, she had never before tried to dress a child, and this first experience was not a pleasing one.  The child’s toes persisted in catching in the tops of the stockings, the little waist seemed to her unaccustomed eyes to be constructed upside down, and the scant little skirt went on hind side before.  In spite of shrill protestations, she braided up the lanky hair and scoured a patch of skin in the very middle of the child’s face, and at last the toilet was complete.  Breakfast brought with it a new chapter in her experiences.  No arguments could induce the child to touch the oatmeal, unless it were combined with equal parts of sugar, and Phebe meekly yielded to the inevitable, while she hung up the dripping sheets to dry.  Then she locked the child into her room, and went wearily down to join the others at the breakfast-table.

Later, when she appeared on the lawn, leading her charge by the hand, Mac came forward to meet them.  With his pudgy hands clasped behind him and his small legs wide apart, he halted in front of the girl and, bending forward, peered up under her sunbonnet.

“Shake hands, baby,” he said encouragingly.

The child obediently put out one small fist; but unluckily Phebe had spent all her energies on the face and neglected the hands entirely.  Mac looked at the grimy fingers, recalled the talk at the breakfast-table and put his own hands behind him once more.

“Nahsty little girl!” he said severely, and, turning on his heel, departed in search of Allyn.

For the next seven days, Phebe passed through every variety of toil and woe and anxiety, also, it must be confessed, of teasing from her family.  According to its lights, the child was good.  It was not bright enough to be mischievous; it was pitifully apathetic on most points.  In four directions, however, it held pronounced opinions, and, moreover, it had the courage of its convictions.  It refused to be left alone for more than five minutes at a time; it refused to be washed; it refused to eat plain food, and it persisted, in spite of all opposition, in calling Phebe grandma.  The title suggested affectionate devotion; but Phebe would have given up the devotion with perfect readiness.

It had been decreed that, if Phebe took the child, she should assume the whole responsibility in the matter, and she was resolute in carrying out her share of the compact.  Theodora washed her hands of the affair entirely and only viewed it as an immense joke; but Hope, motherly and tender-hearted woman that she was, tried her best to come to the aid of her young sister.  It was in vain.  The little girl, homesick and forlorn for her wonted ways and plays, appeared to regard Phebe as the sole connecting link between the present gilded captivity and her old-time freedom.  She wailed loudly at the approach of any one else, and was only content when her temporary guardian was within sight and touch.  For seven weary days, the child was Phebe’s inseparable companion and adjunct.  On the evening of the eighth day, Phebe came home from New York, burned her syllabi and carried seven bulky tomes back to the public library.