KIT OF GREENACRE FARM

by

IZOLA FORRESTER

The World Syndicate Publishing Co. Cleveland, O. New York, N. Y. George W. Jacobs & Company

1919

CONTENTS

 CHAPTER

 I. "NO TRESPASSING"

 II. MRS. GORHAM SMELLS SMOKE

 III. KIT RISES TO PROPHESY

 IV. THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

 V. SHEPHERD SWEETINGS

 VI. EXPECTING "KIT"

 VII. PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

 VIII. AT THE SIGN OF THE MUMMY

 IX. ALL SANDY'S FAULT

 X. THE DEAN'S OUTPOSTS

 XI. "KEEP OUT"

 XII. KIT LOCATES A "FOUNDER"

 XIII. ENTER THE ROYAL MUMMIES

 XIV. IN HONOR OF MARCELLE

 XV. THE FAMILY ADVISES

 XVI. SHOPPING FOR SHAKESPEARE

 XVII. HOPE'S PRIMROSE PATH

 XVIII. STANLEY APOLOGIZES

 XIX. THE COURT OF APPEAL

 XX. HOGS AND HORACE

 XXI. THE CIRCLE OF RA

 XXII. HEADED FOR GILEAD

 XXIII. THE DEAN SEES THE STAR

 XXIV. THE TENTS OF GREENACRES

 XXV. COAXING THE WILDERNESS

 XXVI. PAYING GUESTS

 XXVII. HELENITA'S SONG-BIRD

XXVIII. STANLEY PAYS AN OLD SCORE

 XXIX. KIT GIVES HER BLESSING

 XXX. FACING REALITY

CHAPTER I

"NO TRESPASSING"

Kit was on lookout duty, and had been for the past hour and a half. Thecupola room, with its six windows, commanded a panoramic view of thecountryside, and from here she had done sentry duty over the huckleberrypatch. 

It lay to the northeast of the house, a great, rambling, rocky, ten acrelot that straggled unevenly from the wood road down to the river. To thecasual onlooker, it seemed just a patch of underbrush. There werehalf-grown birches all over it, and now and then a little dwarf sprucetree or cluster of hazel bushes. But to the girls of Greenacres, that tenacre lot represented a treasure trove in the month of August whenhuckleberries and blueberries were ripe. Shad said knowing the proper timeto pick huckleberries was just born in one, so the girls had guarded theold pasture from any marauding youngsters or wayside peddlers. 

"You've got to keep a good eye out for them this year, " Shad warned them. "Last year wasn't good for huckleberries, apples or nuts, but this isgoing to be a regular jubilee harvest. Them bushes up there are hanging sofull that you can put up quarts and quarts and quarts of them and sendhuckleberry pies to the heathen all winter if you want to. "

And he had likewise warned them that that particular berry patch had beenfamous throughout the countryside ever since the days when Greenacres hadbelonged to the Trowbridges. Several times when it had happened to be agood year for the huckleberry crop, raiders had swept down and culled thebest of the harvest. Not from around the near-by villages had they come, but from the small towns, ten or fifteen miles away. 

"Them mill boys and girls, " Shad declared, "just think that the Lord growsthings in the country for anybody to come along and pick. They don't payno more attention to a 'No Trespassing' sign than they would to awoodchuck's tracks. The only thing to do is watch, and when you see 'emturn in through the bars off the main road, you come down and let me know, and telephone over for Hannibal Hicks to come and ketch 'em. Hannibalain't doin' nothin' to earn his fifteen dollars a year as constable 'roundhere, and we ought to help him out if we can. "

So to-day, it was Kit's turn to watch the huckleberry patch from thecupola room, and along towards three o'clock she beheld a trig-lookingred-wheeled, black-bodied wagon, drawn unmistakably by a livery horse, pull up at the pasture bars, and its driver calmly and shamelessly hitchthere. He took out of the wagon not a burlap bag, but a tan leather handbag of generous size, and also something else that looked like a capaciousbox with a handle to it. 

"Camouflage, " said Kit to herself, scornfully. "He's going to fill themwith our berries, and then make believe he's selling books. "

Down-stairs she sped with the news. Doris was out at the barn negotiatingpeace terms with a half-grown calf that she had been trying to tame fordays, and which still persisted in butting its head every time she camenear it with friendly overtures. Jean and Helen had gone up to Norwichwith Mrs. Robbins for the day, and her father was out in the apple orchardwith Philemon Weaver, spraying the trees against the attacks of the gypsymoths. Leastwise, Philemon held to spraying, but Mr. Robbins was anxiousto experiment with some of the newer methods advocated by the government. 

All unconscious of Kit's intentions or Shad's eagerness to abet them, thetwo rambled off towards the upland orchards. Kit had started Shad afterthe trespasser, while she went back to telephone to Mr. Hicks. The verylast thing she had said to Shad was to put the vandal in the corn-crib andstand guard over him until Mr. Hicks came. 

"Don't you worry one bit, Miss Kit, " the constable of Gilead Townshipassured her over the wire. "I'll be there in my car in less than twentyminutes. You folks ain't the only ones that's suffering this year fromfruit thieves, and it's time we taught these high fliers from town thatthey can't light anywhere they like and pick what they like. I'll take himright down to the judge this afternoon. "

Kit sat by the open window and fanned herself with a feeling of triumphantindignation. If Jean or Helen had been home, she knew perfectly well theywould have been soft-hearted and lenient, but every berry on every bushwas precious to Kit, and she felt that now was the appointed hour, asCousin Roxy would have said. 

Inside of a few minutes, Shad came back, perspiring and red faced, butfilled with unholy glee. He dipped a tin bucket into the water pail. 

"I've got him, " he said, happily, "safe and sound in the corn-crib, andit's hotter than all get out in there. He can't escape unless he slipsthrough a crack in the floor. I just caught him red handed as he wasbending down right over the bushes, and what do you suppose he tried totell me, Miss Kit? He said he was looking for caterpillars. " Shad laughedriotously at the recollection. "Did you call up Han Hicks?"

Kit nodded, looking out at the corn-crib. The midsummer sun beat down uponit pitilessly, at the end of the lane behind the barn. 

"Do you suppose he'll survive, Shad? I'll bet a cookie it's a hundred andsix inside there. "

"Do him good, " retorted Shad. "Probably it's the only chance he's ever hadto meditate on his misdoings. Don't you fret about him. He's just as huskyas I be, and twice as hefty. It was all I could do to ketch a good holt onhim. "

"Oh, Shad, " exclaimed Kit. "I didn't want you to touch him, you know. "

"I didn't, " Shad laughed. "I just gave him a bit of sound scripturereasoning, aided by fist persuasion when he was inclined to put up anargument. I'll stand guard over him until Han comes along, and takes himquietly off our hands. I reckon he didn't think we had any majesty of thelaw here in Gilead. "

Kit looked after his retreating figure somewhat dubiously. It was onething to act on the impulse of the moment and quite another to face theconsequences. Now that the prisoner was safe in the corn-crib, shewondered somewhat uneasily just what her father would say when he foundout what she had done to protect the berry patch. But just now he was safein the upper orchard with old Mr. Weaver, deep in apple culture, and shethought she could get rid of the trespasser before he returned. 

Mrs. Gorham was in the kitchen putting up peaches. Her voice came withdroning, old-fashioned sweetness through the screen door. 

 "When I can read my title dear To mansions in the skies, I'll bid farewell to every fear, And wipe my weeping eyes. "

Kit slipped around the side drive behind the house out to the hill road. Mr. Hicks would have to come from Gilead Green in this direction, and hereshe sat on one of the high entrance posts, waiting and cogitating. 

The woodbine that clambered over the two high, white posts was stillgreen, but scrambling along the ground were wild blackberry runners justturning a rich brown crimson. 

The minutes passed and still Mr. Hicks failed to appear. If Kit could havevisualized his journey hither, she might have beheld him, lingering hereand there along the country roads, stopping to tell the news to anyneighbor who might be working out his road tax in the lull of the seasonbetween haying and harvest time. Beside him sat Elvira, his youngest, drinking in every word with tense appreciation of the novelty. It was thefirst chance Mr. Hicks had had to make an arrest during his term ofoffice, and as a special test and reward of diligence, Elvira had beenpermitted to come along and behold the climax with her own eyes. But thetwenty minutes stretched out into nearly an hour's time and more, andKit's heart sank when she beheld her father strolling leisurely down theorchard path, just as Mr. Hicks hove in sight. 

Mr. Weaver hobbled beside him, smiling contentedly. 

"Well, I guess we've got 'em licked this time, Jerry, " he chuckled. "Ifthere's a bug or a moth that can stand that leetle dose of mine, I'll eatthe whole apple crop myself. "

"Still, I'll feel better satisfied when Howard gets here, and gives anexpert opinion, " Mr. Robbins rejoined. "He wrote he expected to be hereto-day without fail. "

"Well, of course you're entitled to your opinion, Jerry, " Mr. Weaverreplied doubtfully. "But I never did set any store at all by these heregovernment chaps with their little satchels and tree doctor books. I'djust as soon walk up to an apple tree and hand it a blue pill or a shinplaster. "

Kit slid hastily down from the post as Mr. Hicks' black and white horseturned in from the road. 

"Hello, " he called out, cheerily. "How be you, Jerry? Howdy, Philemon?Miss Kit here tells me you've been harboring a fruit thief, and you'vecaught him. "

Kit's cheeks were bright red as she laid one hand on her father'sshoulder. 

"Shad's got him right over in the corn-crib, Mr. Hicks. I haven't toldfather yet, because it might worry him. It isn't anything at all, Dad, "she added, hurriedly. "We girls have been keeping a watch on the berrypatch, you know, and to-day it was my turn to stand guard up in thecupola. I just happened to see somebody over there after the berries, so Itold Shad to go and get him, and I called up Mr. Hicks. "

Mr. Robbins shook his head with a little smile. 

"I'm afraid Kit has been overzealous, Hannibal, " he said. "I don't knowanything about this, but we'll go over to the corn-crib and find out whatit's all about. "

Kit and Evie secured a good point of vantage up on the porch while theothers skirted around the garden over to the old corn-crib where Shadstood sentinel duty. 

"My, I like your place over here, " Evie exclaimed, wistfully. "You've gotso many ornaments out-of-doors. Ma says she can't even grow a nasturtiumon our place without the hens scratching it up. "

Kit nodded, but could not answer. Already she had what Cynthy Allen calleda "premonition" that all was not as it should be at the corn-crib. She sawShad stealthily and cautiously put back the wide wooden bars that held thedoor, then Mr. Hicks, fully on the defensive with a stout hickory caneheld in readiness for any unseemly onslaught on the part of the culprit, advanced into the corn-crib. Evie drew closer, her little freckled facefull of curiosity. 

"Ain't Pop brave?" she whispered, "and he never made but two arrestsbefore in all his life. One was over at Miss Hornaby's when she wouldn'tlet Minnie and Myron go to school 'cause their shoes were all out on theground, and the other time he got that French weaver over at Beacon Hillfor selling cider. "

Still Kit had no answer, for over at the corn-crib she beheld thestrangest scene. Out stepped the prisoner as fearlessly and blithely aspossible, spoke to her father, and the two of them instantly claspedhands, while Shad, Mr. Hicks and Philemon stared with all their might. Thenext the girls knew, the whole party came strolling back leisurely, andKit could see the stranger was regaling her father with a humorous view ofthe whole affair. Shad tried to signal to her behind his back somemysterious warning, and even Mr. Hicks looked jocular. 

Kit leaned both hands on the railing, and stared hard at the trespasser. He was a young man, dressed in a light gray suit with high sport boots. Hewas, as Mrs. Gorham expressed it later, "light complected" and tanned sodeeply that his blonde, curly hair seemed even lighter. He lifted his hatto Kit, with one foot on the lower step, while Mr. Robbins called up:

"Mr. Howard, my dear, our fruit expert from Washington, whom I wasexpecting. "

And Kit bowed, blushing furiously and wishing with all her heart she mighthave silenced Evie's audible and disappointed ejaculation:

"Didn't he hook huckleberries after all?"

CHAPTER II

MRS. GORHAM SMELLS SMOKE

"I was perfectly positive that if we went away and left you in charge forone single day, Kit, you would manage to get into some kind ofmisadventure, " Jean said, reproachfully, that evening. "If you onlywouldn't act on the impulse of the moment. Why on earth didn't you tellfather, and ask his advice before you telephoned to Mr. Hicks?"

"That's a sensible thing for you to say, " retorted Kit, hotly, "afteryou've all warned me not to worry Dad about anything. And I did not actupon the impulse of the moment, " very haughtily. "I made certain logicaldeductions from certain facts. How was I to know he was hunting gypsymoths and other winged beasts when I saw him bending over bushes in ourberry patch? Anyhow it would simplify matters if Dad would let us knowwhen he expected illustrious visitors. Did you see old Hannibal's face andEvie's, too? They were so disappointed at not having a prisoner in tow toexhibit to the Gilead populace on the way over to the jail. "

Mrs. Gorham glanced up over her spectacles at the circle of faces aroundthe sitting-room table. The girls had volunteered to help her pick overberries for canning the following day. It was a sacrifice to make, too, with the midsummer evening calling to them in all its varied orchestraltones: Katydids and peep frogs, the swish of the wind through the bigNorway pines on the terraces, and the scrape of Shad's old fiddle from theback porch. It was Friday evening, and Mr. And Mrs. Robbins had drivenover to the Judge's to attend a community meeting, the latter being one ofCousin Roxy's innovations in Gilead. 

"Land alive, " she had been wont to say. "Here we are all living on thesame hills and valleys and never meeting 'cept on Sundays when we have to, or now and again when there happens to be a funeral. I declare if Ididn't drive about all the time behind Ella Lou, I'd never know how folkswere getting on. So every two weeks the Judge and I are going to hold anold-time social, only we call it a community meeting so as to try to giveit the new spirit. It's just as well for us to remember that we ain't alldead yet by a long shot, 'though I do think there's a whole lot that ain'tgot any more get up and get to them than Noah's old gray mule that had tobe shoved off the Ark. "

Mr. Robbins had invited the erstwhile prisoner to accompany them, but hehad decided instead to keep on his way to the old Inn on the hill abovethe village, much to Jean and Helen's disappointment. 

Helen had discovered that his first name was Stanley, which relieved hermind considerably. 

"If it had been Abijah or Silas, I know I could never have forgiven himfor getting in the berry patch, " she said, "but there is somethingpromising about Stanley. Seems as if he lit like Mercury just when therewasn't anything happening here at all. "

"Wonder if I turned out that oil stove, " Mrs. Gorham said thoughtfully. "Seems like I smell something. Shad, " raising her voice, "do you get upand go out in that 'ell' room and see if I turned out that fire under thesyrup. I smell smoke. "

"Oh, Lord, " groaned Shad, laying aside his cherished instrument. "Youcould smell ice if you half tried. "

He got up lumberingly and sauntered out through the kitchen into the longlean-to addition, that was used as a summer kitchen now, and the moment heopened the door there poured out a thick volume of black smoke and flyingsoot. The old-fashioned oil stove had a way of letting its wicks "workup, " as Shad said, if left too long to its own devices. 

There was a spurt of flame from the woodwork behind the stove, and Shadslammed the door to, and ran for the water bucket. 

It seemed incredible how fast the flames spread. Summoned by his outcry, the girls formed a bucket brigade from the well to the kitchen door, whileShad, his mouth bound around in a drenched Turkish towel, fought the blazesingle handed. 

Mrs. Gorham made straight for the telephone, calling up the Judge, and twoor three of the nearest neighbors for help. The Peckham boys from thesawmill were the first to respond, and five minutes later Hiram was on thespot, having seen the rising smoke and flare in the sky from Maple Lawn. 

"You'll never save the place, " old Mr. Peckham told them flatly. "Thewell's low and everything is dry as tinder. Better start carrying thingsout, girls, because the best we men-folks can do is to keep the roofs wetdown and try to save the barn. "

While the fire was confined to the "ell" kitchen, the two older Peckhamboys set to work up-stairs, under Jean's direction. Kit had made for herfather's room the first thing. When Jean opened the door she found herpiling the contents of the desk and chiffonier drawers helter-skelterinto blankets. 

"It's all right, Jean, " she called. "I'm not missing a thing. You tie thecorners up and have the boys carry these down-stairs and bring back theclothes-basket and a couple of tubs for the books. Tell Helen to take thecanaries out. "

"Doris has them, and Gladsome, too, " answered Jean. "And Mrs. Gorham isgetting all of the preserves out of the cellar, and Mr. Peckham says he'ssure they'll save the piano and most of the best furniture, but, oh, Kit, just think of how father and mother will feel when they see the flames inthe sky, and know it's Greenacres burning. "

"You'd better start in at mother's room and stop cogitating, or we'll besliding down a lightning rod to get out of here. "

Nobody quite noticed Helen in the excitement, but later when all was over, it was found that she had rescued all the treasures possible, the picturesand bric-à-brac, the sofa pillows and all the linen and family silverthat had been packed away in the bottom of the sideboard. 

As the rising glow of the flames lighted up the sky help began to arrivefrom all quarters. Mrs. Gorham's thoughtfulness in telephoning immediatelybrought the Judge first, with all of the neighbors that had been presentat the community meeting. Cousin Roxy was bareheaded, little curly wispsof hair fluttering around her face. 

"I made your father stay up at our place, " she told the girls. "You'll allprobably have to come back with me anyhow and excitement isn't good forhim. Besides, he wouldn't be a bit of good around here. Seems like they'regetting the fire under pretty good control. I don't believe all the housewill go. It was fearful old anyway, and it needed to be rebuilt if youever expect your great-grandchildren to live here. "

Kit noticed an entirely new and unsuspected trait in Cousin Roxy on thisnight of excitement. It was the only time when she had not seen her takecommand of the situation. But to-night she helped Mrs. Gorham pack allthe necessary household supplies into the back of the wagon for Shad todrive up to Maple Lawn. As soon as she had seen the extent of the damageshe had said immediately that the robin's nest must be moved up the hillto her own old home, where she had lived before her marriage to JudgeEllis. 

"It won't take but a couple of days to put it into shape for you, andHiram's right up there to look after things. You'll be back here beforesnow flies, with a few modern improvements put in, and all of you thebetter for the change. Helen, go bring the family treasures from underthat pine tree, and put them in the back of our car. "

"You know, Cousin Roxy, " Kit exclaimed, "I thought the minute you showedup down here to-night you'd be the chief of the fire department. "

Cousin Roxy laughed heartily. 

"Did you, child? Well, I've always held that there are times and seasonswhen you ought to let the men-folks alone. After you've lived a lifetimein these parts, you'll know that every boy born and bred around here istaught how to fight fire from the time he can tote a water bucket. Did yousave all the chickens, Shad?"

"Ain't lost even a guinea hen!" Shad assured her. "The barn ain't touched, and so I'm going to sleep over the harness room and watch out for thestock. "

It was always a secret joy to the girls to hear the way Shad would rollout about the Greenacre "stock. "

"Just as if, " Jean said, "we had all the cattle upon a thousand hills andracers and thoroughbreds into the bargain, instead of Bonnibel and LadyBountiful, with Princess and the hens. I think Helen put him up to it. Shealways thinks in royal terms of affluence. "

CHAPTER III

KIT RISES TO PROPHESY

The morning after the fire found the family at breakfast over with theJudge's family. It was impossible as yet for the girls to feel the fullreaction over their loss. As the Judge remarked, youth responds to changeand variety quicker than any new interest, and they were already planninga wonderful reconstruction period. Kit and Billy rode down on horseback tolook at the ruins, and came back with an encouraging report. The back ofthe house was badly damaged, but the main building stood intact, thoughthe charred clapboards and wide vacant windows looked desolate enough. 

"Thank goodness the wind was from the south, and blew the flames away fromthe pines, " said Kit, dropping into her chair, hungrily. "Doesn't it seemgood to get some of Cousin Roxy's huckleberry pancakes again, girls? Ohyes, we met my prisoner--I should say, my erstwhile prisoner--on the road. He was tapping chestnut trees over on Peck's Hill like a woodpecker. Youneedn't laugh, Doris, 'cause Billie saw him too, didn't you, Bill? Andhe's got a sweet forgiving nature. He doffed his hat to me and I smiledback just as though I'd never caught him in our berry patch, and had Shadlock him up in the corn-crib. "

"Was he heading this way?" the Judge asked. "I want him to look at mypeach trees and tell me what in tunket ails them. "

"Why, Judge, I'm surprised at you, and before the children, too. " CousinRoxy's eyes twinkled with mirth at having caught the Judge in a lapse. 

"I only said tunket, Roxy, " he began, but Cousin Roxy cut him short. 

"Tunket's been good Connecticut for Tophet ever since I was knee high to atoadstool, and we won't say anything more about that. Jerry will be gladto go up with you to the peach orchard, and you can take the youngsterswith you. I want Jean and Kit to drive over with us and help fix MapleLawn. "

But before a week was out, all of the carefully laid plans for housing the"robins" before snow fell were knocked higher than a kite. Kit said thatone of the most delightful things about country life, anyway, was itsuncertainty. You went ahead and laid a lot of plans on the lap of theNorns, and then the old ladies stood up and scattered everythinghelter-skelter. The beauty of it was, though, that they usually turnedaround and handed you unexpected gifts so much better than anything youhad hoped for, that you were left without a chance for argument. 

The family had taken up its new quarters at Maple Lawn, and two of thelocal carpenters, Mr. Peleg Weaver, Philemon's brother, and Mr. Delaplaine, had been persuaded to devote a portion of their valuable timeto rehabilitating Greenacre Farm. It took tact and persuasion to inducethe aforesaid gentlemen to desert their favorite chairs on the littlestoop in front of Byers' Grocery Store, and approach anything resemblingdaily toil. There had been a Squire in the Weaver family three generationsback, and Peleg held firmly to established precedent. He might be landedgentry, but he was no tiller of the soil, and he secretly looked down onhis elder brother for personally cultivating the family acres. 

Mr. Delaplaine was likewise addicted to reverie and historic retrospect. Nothing delighted Billie and Kit so much as to ride down to the store andget a chance to converse with both of the old men on local history andfamily "trees. " Mr. Delaplaine's mail, which consisted mostly ofcatalogues, came addressed to N. B. Delaplaine, Esq. , and even the littleFrench Canadian kiddies tumbling around the gardens of the mill housesdown in Nantic knew what that N. B. Stood for, but to Gilead he was just"Bony" Delaplaine. 

Every day that first week found the girls down at the Farm prying aroundthe ruins for any lost treasures. Stanley Howard struck up a friendshipwith both the Judge and Mr. Bobbins, and usually drove by on his way fromthe village. He would stop and chat for a few moments with them, but Kitwas elusive. Vaguely, she felt that the proper thing for her to do was tooffer an apology, for even considering him an unlawful trespasser. WhenStanley would drive away, Jean would laugh at her teasingly. 

"Oh, why should the spirit of mortal be proud, sister mine? He seems avery sightly young man, even if he does 'chase caterpillars for a living. 'I never did see any one except you, Kit, who hated to acknowledge herselfin the wrong. The rest of us all have the most peaceful, forgiving sort ofdispositions, but you can be a regular porcupine when you want to be. "

"It could come from Uncle Cassius, " retorted Kit. "Did you hear them alltalking about him over at Elmwood while we were there? Let's sit hereunder the pines a minute until the mailman goes by. I'm awfully tiredpoking over cinders. Cousin Roxy said he was the only notable in ourfamily. Dean Cassius Cato Peabody. We ought to tell 'Bony' that. "

"Don't you call him 'Bony' so he'll hear you, " whispered Jean. "It wouldhurt his feelings. " She glanced back over her shoulder to where Mr. Delaplaine worked, taking off the outer layer of charred clapboards fromthe front of the house. 

"Still it is nice to own a dean, almost as good as a squire, " repeatedKit, placidly. "There were only seven original ones here in Gilead; andhis grandfather was one of those. Let's see, Jean, he would have been ourgreat-great-great-grandfather, wouldn't he? Great-Uncle Cassius is namedfor him, Cassius Cato Peabody. Just think of him, Jean, with a name likethat when he was a little boy, in a braided jacket and those funny highwaisted breeches you see in the little painted woodcuts in Cousin Roxy'schildhood books. "

"I didn't pay much attention to what they were saying about him, " saidJean, dreamily. "Is he still alive?"

"He is, but I guess he might as well be dead as far as the rest of thefamily is concerned. Cousin Roxy said he'd never married, and he livedwith his old maiden lady sister out west somewhere. Not the real west, either; I mean the interesting west like Saskatchewan and Saskatoonand--and California; you know what I mean, Jean?"

"I didn't even hear where they lived. I'm afraid I wasn't interested. Aren't you glad the fire didn't bum the cupola? I almost wish they couldleave the house that lovely weathered brown tone, instead of painting itwhite with green blinds again. Dad would like it that way, too. I supposeeverybody would say it was flying in the face of tradition, after theTrowbridge place has been white two hundred years. "

"There comes the mail, " called Jean, starting up and running down thedrive like a young deer, as the little cart hove in sight. The carrierwaved a newspaper and letter at them. 

"Nothin' for you girls, to-day, only a letter for your pa, and weeklynewspaper for Hiram. I'll leave it up at the old place as I go by. " Headded as a happy afterthought to relieve any possible anxiety on theirpart, "It's from Delphi, Mich. "

Kit stood transfixed with wonder, as he passed on up the hill. 

"Jean, " she said, slowly, "there's something awfully queer about me. Iheard Cousin Roxy say once, I was born with a veil, and ought to be ableto prognosticate. That letter was from Uncle Cassius Cato Peabody. "

"Well, what if it is?" asked Jean, shaking the needles from her sergeskirt as she rose leisurely. 

Kit drew on her freshman knowledge of ancient history, and quoted:

 "Last night the eagles circled over Rome, And Caesar's destiny----"

Jean laughed and pointed to a line of crows rising leisurely from a clumpof pine woods. 

"What does it mean when the crows circle over Gilead?"

Kit jammed her velvet "tam" down over one ear adventurously, and startedtowards the gateway, finishing the quotation as she went:

 "--crowned him thrice king!"

CHAPTER IV

THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

It appeared that Uncle Cassius lived strictly up to tradition, for it hadbeen over fifteen years since any word had been received from the oracleat Delphi, as the girls dubbed him from the very first. The letter whichbroke the long silence was read aloud several times that day, the girlsespecially searching between its lines for any hidden sentiment or hint offamily affection. 

"I don't see why on earth he tries to be generous when he doesn't knowhow, " Helen said, musingly. "I wonder if he's got bushy gray hair andwhiskers, like somebody we were studying about yesterday. Who was that, Kit?"

Kit glanced up from Uncle Cassius' letter with a preoccupied expression. 

"Whiskers?" she repeated. "Why, I don't know; Walt Whitman, Ibsen, Longfellow, Joaquin Miller? Tolstoi had long straggly ones, didn't he?"

"These were kind of bushy ones. I think it was Carlyle. "

"Wait a minute while I read this thing over carefully again, " Kit warnedthem. "I think while we're alone we ought to discuss it freely. Motherjust took it as if it were a case of 'Which shall it be, which shall itbe, I looked at John, John looked at me. ' It seems to me, since itconcerns us vitally, that we ought to have some selection in the matterourselves. "

"But Kit, dear, you didn't read carefully, " Jean interposed with a littlelaugh. "See here, " she followed the writing with her finger tip. "He says, 'Send me the boy. ' There isn't any boy. "

"No, " Kit agreed, thoughtfully, "but I presume there should have been aboy. I'm more like father than any of you, and I'd love to have been theboy in the family. I wonder why he said that. "

"Well, it certainly shuts off any further negotiations because 'thereain't no sech animal' in the 'robin's' roster. And no matter what you say, Kit, I don't think you're 'specially like father at all. He hasn't a quicktemper and he's not a single bit domineering. "

Kit leaned over her tenderly. 

"Dearest, am I domineering to you? Have I crushed your spirit, and madeyou all weak and pindlin'? I'm awfully sorry. I didn't mean that my badtraits were inherited from Dad. What I meant was my glorious initiativeand craving for novelty. Just at the moment I can't think of anything thatwould be more interesting or adventurous than going out to Uncle Cassius, and trying to fulfill all his expectations. "

"Thought you wanted to go out to the Alameda Ranch with Uncle Hal morethan anything in the world, a little while ago. You're the originalweather-vane, Kit. "

"Well, I wouldn't give a snap of my finger for a person who couldn't facenew emergencies and feel within them the surge of--of----"

"Don't declaim in the family circle, Kit. We admit the surge, but wouldyou really and truly be willing to go to this place? I don't even knowwhat state it's in. "

"The Lady Jean is forgetful of her mythology, " chanted Kit. "Delphi is inGreece, somewhere near Delos, and I don't think it's so very far from thegrove where Atalanta took refuge before she ran her races. "

Helen glanced up in her absent-minded way. 

"Delphi?" she said, musingly. "Wasn't that the place where they used toput a tripod over a rift in the rock and a veiled priestess sat down andwaited for Apollo's message to come to her? We had that up at school whenwe took up Greece. "

"I shall take a milking stool out with me, " said Kit, promptly, "and ifthe situation is not already filled, I shall be the veiled priestess ofDelphi. "

There was a footstep in the long hallway, and the mother bird came in fromthe kitchen. The kitchen at Maple Lawn still bore the stamp of CousinRoxy's taste. It was more a living-room than a "cookery. " There was nolibrary proper here, only the parlor, a large corner bedroom, and adining-room which took up the width of the house except for the hall. Thislatter was the favorite consulting room of the girls, and to-day they wereall busily paring early apples and quinces to put down in stone crocks, against the coming of winter days. 

"Mother, " called Helen, "were you ever in Delphi, where Uncle Cassiuslives?"

Mrs. Robbins sat down on the arm of Jean's chair and smiled at the eagerfaces upturned to hers. 

"Just once, long ago when I was about eight years old. We were passingthrough on our way east from California, and mother stayed for about aweek at Delphi. It's a little college town on Lake Nadonis, about twelvemiles inland from Lake Michigan, and perhaps sixty miles north of Chicagoon the big bluffs that line the shore nearly all the way to Milwaukee. Uncle Cassius was a first settler there, I believe. You don't have to bevery old to have been a first settler in Wisconsin. I think about thefirst thing he helped establish there was Hope College. I don't rememberso very much about it, girls, it was so long ago. I know I loved thebluffs and the little winding paths that led up from the shore below, butit seems to me Uncle Cassius' house was rather cheerless and formal. Hewas a good deal of a scholar and antiquarian. Aunt Daphne seemed to mejust a deprecating little shadow that trotted after him, and made lifesmooth. "

Kit listened with the attentive curiosity of a squirrel, and Jean, whoknew every changing expression on her face, was sure she was having alittle private debate with herself. 

"I don't think, " continued Mrs. Robbins, easily, "that it is such amisfortune after all our not having a boy to fill his order. It wouldn'tbe a very cheerful or sympathetic home for any young person. "

"Oh, but mother, dear, " Kit burst forth, eagerly. "Think what glorious funit would be to train them, and make them understand how much moreinteresting you can make life if you only take the right point of view. "

"Yes, but supposing what seemed to be the right point of view to you, Kit, was not the right point of view to them at all. Every one looks at lifefrom his own angle. "

"Carlota always said that, too, " Jean put in. "I remember at our art classeach student would see the subject from a different angle and sketchaccordingly. Carlota said it was exactly like life, where each one getshis own perspective. "

"But you can't get any perspective at all if you shut yourself up in thedark, " Kit argued. She leaned her chin on both palms, elbows plantedfirmly on the table, as she prepared to influence the opinion of thefamily. "Now just listen to this, and don't all speak at once until I getthrough. You went away, Jean, down to New York, and then up to Boston, andthough I say it as shouldn't, right to your face, you came back to thebosom of your family, very much better satisfied and pleasanter to livewith. I think after you've stayed in one place too long you get, well--asBillie says, 'fed up' and wish to goodness you could get away somewhere. Ihaven't any art at all, or anything special that I could wave at you anddemand 'expression' as Bab Crane calls it. What I need is something new todevelop my special gifts and talents, and mother darling, if you wouldonly consent to let me go for even two or three months, I will come backto you a perfect angel, besides doing Uncle Cassius and Aunt Daphne a pileof good, I know. "

"It sounds right enough, dear, " Mrs. Robbins said, her brown eyes full ofamusement, "but we can't very well disguise you as a boy, and UncleCassius is not the kind of person to trifle with. "

Kit thought this over seriously. 

"Don't tell them until I've started, " she suggested, "and be sure and mailthe letter so it will get there after I do, and send me quick, so theywon't have any chance to change their minds. Jean will be home until themiddle of October, and you really and truly don't need me here at all. I'msure there must have been a missionary concealed away in our family likea hidden spring, for I feel the zeal of conversion upon me. I long todescend on Delphi. "

"Well, I don't know what to say, Kit. I'll have to talk it over with yourfather first. I wonder why Uncle Cassius thought we had a boy in thefamily, and why he wanted him specially. "

"Maybe he thought a boy would be more interested in antiques. Are theyChinese porcelains and jewels, or just mummy things?"

"Mostly ruins, as I remember, " laughed her mother. "When he was young, Uncle Cassius used to be sent away by the Geographical Society to exploreburied cities in Chaldea and Egypt. "

"Bless his heart, I wish I could coax him to start in again, right now, and take me with him, " Kit exclaimed, blithely. "Anyhow, I'm going to hopethat it will come right and I can go. I shall collect my Lares and Penatesand start packing. Can I borrow your steamer trunk, Jean? Just write acharming letter, mother dear, sort of in the abstract, you know, thankinghim, and calling us 'the children' in the aggregate, so he can't detectjust what we are, then when I depart, you can wire them, 'Kit arrives suchand such a time. ' They'll probably expect a Christopher, and once I landthere, and they realize the treasure you have sent them, they will forgiveme anything. "

Uncle Cassius' letter was read over again carefully by Mr. Robbins. Kitcarried it out to the grape arbor, where he and Hiram were untangling andtraining some vagrant vines to travel in the way they should go, up overthe trellis work. There was a round table here made of birchwood that justfitted nicely into the octagonal arbor, encircled by birch seats. Leadingaway from the arbor proper were two long pergolas, likewise built byHiram, of birchwood. The arbor had always been a favorite spot with thegirls, when Aunt Roxy had lived in the rambling old white homestead. Nowthat it was their abiding place _pro tem. _, they spent nearly all theirleisure time out there. There was always a breeze from the south that madethe arbor a port of call, and each one of its vine-framed openings was alookout over wide spaces of beauty. Cousin Roxy had once said that she hadmade a point of using the arbor as a spot to "rest and invite her soul, "for years. It had been to her like David's tower, with all its windowsopen towards Jerusalem. 

"I don't mind Hiram hearing, " Kit said; "maybe he can suggest some wayout. Just read that letter over, Dad, very, very carefully, and see ifthere isn't some way you can smuggle me out to Delphi, without hurtingUncle Cassius' feelings. "

Mr. Bobbins adjusted his eye-glasses, smiling the little whimsical smilethat Kit loved, and together they read the missive again----

 "MY DEAR JERROLD:--

 "I trust both you and Elizabeth are enjoying good health, and that this finds you both facing a more prosperous time than when I heard last from you. 

 "It has occurred to both Daphne and myself that we may be able to relieve you of part of your responsibility and care, at least for a short time. If the experiment should prove advantageous to all concerned we might be able to arrange a longer stay. One suggestion, however, I feel privileged to make. We would prefer that you would send the boy, as you know this is a college town, and I am sure it would broaden his views to come west, even for a short time. I need hardly add that we will do all in our power to make his stay a pleasant and profitable one. 

 "Another point to consider is this. I would like to interest him in a few of my little hobbies, archæology, geology, etc. I have delved deeply into the mysteries of the past, and feel I should pass what I have learned on as a heritage to youth. 

 "Trusting that you and Elizabeth will be able to coincide with our views in the matter, I remain, "Yours faithfully, CASSIUS C. PEABODY. "

"You know, Dad, " here Kit slipped her area persuasively around herfather's neck and patted his shoulder, "you've always said yourself that Iwas the 'David Copperfield' in the family. Don't you know how the childwas to be named after his aunt, Betsy Trotwood, and she never reallyforgave him for turning out to be a boy instead of a girl. Mother has toldme how she named me Jerrold, Jr. , and anyway I've done the best I could tolive up to it. Billie says I'm an awfully good pal, and he'd much rathertalk to me than any of the boys he knows at school, because I understandwhat he's driving at. "

"But don't you think your mother will need you here? Jean will be goingback to Boston in October to her art class, and Helen is only fourteen. Idon't think it would matter, if you only visited them for a couple ofmonths, but supposing Uncle Cassius took a fancy to you. " Mr. Robbins'eyes twinkled as he watched Kit's grave face. 

"You mean, " she said, "supposing he decided that my brain measured up tohis expectations of Jerry, Jr. , and they wanted me to stay all winter?Couldn't I go to school there, just as well as here? You know, Dad, I'mreally not a child any longer. Don't you realize that I'm fifteen and ahalf?"

"Reaching years of discretion, aren't you, girlie?" smiled her father. "Isuppose it would do you a lot of good in a broadening way to go through anew experience like this. "

"I'm not thinking about that, " Kit sent back an understanding gleam offun, "but I'm perfectly positive that it would do Uncle Cassius and AuntDaphne an awful lot of good. "

"Then we must not deprive them of the opportunity. Do you think so, Hiram?"

Hiram stuck his head through the clambering vines and clustering leaves, like a tousled freckle-faced New England faun. 

"Couldn't do no harm either way, s'far as I can see, " he said, judiciously. "And if the old folks need any sort of discipline, I'dcertainly start Miss Kit after them. "

CHAPTER V

SHEPHERD SWEETINGS

That was the end of August. Cousin Roxy heartily approved of the plan, andsaid no doubt the fire down at Greenacres had been a direct dispensationof Providence. 

"You were all of you settling down into a rut before it happened, and theold place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know you couldn't haveafforded it, Jerry, if it hadn't been for the fire insurance money comingin so handy like. Now, you'll all move back the first part of the winter, with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the wind to whistlethrough. Jean will be started off on her path of glory, and I don't thinkKit's a mite too young to be fluttering her wings a bit. Land alive, Elizabeth, you ought to be so thankful that you've got children with anyget up and get to them in this day and age. The Judge and I were sayingjust the other night it seems as if most of the young folks up aroundhere haven't got any pluck or initiative at all. They're born to feel thatthey're heirs of grace, and most of them are sure of having a farm orwood-lot in their own right, sooner or later. "

So the steamer trunk stood open most of the time, and Kit prepared for herpilgrimage to Delphi. Mr. Robbins was inclined to take it as rather a goodjoke on the Dean, but the mother bird could not get over a certain littlefeeling of conscience in the matter, perhaps because she could rememberher own visit with her uncle and aunt, and still retained a certainfeeling of veneration for the two old people. But the rest of the familypinned its faith on Kit's persuasive adaptability. 

Helen and Doris, especially, felt that, if anything, the Robbins familywas conferring a high favor on the "Oracle of Delphi. " Kit had always beenthe starter and organizer ever since they could remember, and Helenespecially dreaded going back to school without her. 

"Piney and Sally will go over with you, " Kit told her, cheerfully, "andjust think of the wonderful letters you'll have from me, Helenita. MissCogswell says that I always shine best when I wield the pen of a readywriter, and I'll tell you all the news of Hope College. By the way, mothertold me last night that she's pretty sure in those little family collegesthey run a 'prep' department, which takes in the last two years of highschool. Perhaps I could persuade them that the great-grandniece of CassiusCato would be a deserving object of their consideration. Don't forget topack my skates, Helen. I loaned them to you last, and they're hanging inyour closet. "

Cousin Roxy decided to have a farewell party, two nights before Kit left, and the girls were delighted. Any party launched by Cousin Roxy promisednovelty and excitement. 

A big dancing platform was built on the lawn under the great elms, androws of Japanese lanterns hung like glowworms all among the branches. 

Cady Graves was there with his violin, and called out for the dancing, butJean took the piano between times in the house, and the girls and boysgathered around her, Billie leading in the old college songs they all knewbest. 

It really seemed as though there were a special moon hung up in the Augustsky just for the occasion. It was so richly luminous, and as Doris said, so near you. The children had been playing forfeits, and in Gilead youplayed games at parties until you were at least twenty. Piney Haddock wasgiving out the forfeits, sitting blindfolded on a chair, while Jean heldthem over her head, calling out with each one:

 "Heavy, heavy hangs over your head, What shall the owner do to redeem it?"

Whereupon Piney would have to respond interestedly, "Fine or superfine?"

It happened that Kit's little turquoise forget-me-not ring was theparticular forfeit dangling over Piney's head, when Billie stuck his headin at the open window with a couple of other boys, and Piney lifted herchin at the sound of his voice. 

"She must catch Billie Ellis, and bring him back to kneel at my feet, andhand over his forfeit. "

Billie had evaded this, escaping with Banty Herrick, and the big Peckhamboy, to show them his Belgian hares. Billie never had liked kissing games, and one of the Judge's favorite stories was how he had tried to giveBillie a birthday party once, when he was seven years old. Most of theguests were the Judge's friends, with a small scattering of youngsters, and it appeared that just as the Judge had lined up some sweet-faced oldladies to kiss Billie, Billie had been found missing. Later he waslocated, clad only in overalls, leading the whole string of other childrento a ruined sawmill that stood on a winding stream below the house. 

So to-night the spirit of adversity whirled him about from the driveway, and he sped down the long lane with Kit in fast pursuit. Overhead themulberry trees met in a leafy arcade, and out of the hazel thicket awhippoorwill called, flying low down the lane after the two darting forms, as if it were trying to find out what the excitement was about at thattime of night. At the turn of the lane there were three apple trees, earlyShepherd Sweetings, and here Billie slipped down and lay breathingheavily, his hands hunting for windfalls in the tall grass. Kit passed himby, speeding the full length of the lane, and bringing up at the end ofthe log-run, before the old mill. 

"Billie Ellis, you come out of there, " she called. "I've got my slipperswet already chasing after you, and I'm not going to climb all over thoseold timbers hunting for you. "

Only the whippoorwill answered, calling now from a clump of elderberrybushes close by the water's edge, and while she stood listening, there wasthe dull splash in the pond where some big bullfrog had taken alarm at hercoming. 

Billie gathered a goodly supply of apples, and stole after her in theshadows. 

"Well, I'm not going to stay out here all night waiting for you, " Kitsaid, decisively, addressing the wide dark entrance to the mill, when allat once there came his voice, directly behind her shoulder. 

"Why didn't you try to catch me? I was resting back under the apple tree. Let's sit down over the falls and eat some. If Piney's waiting for me tokneel in front of her, she'll wait all night. I'd like to see myselfkneeling in front of a girl!"

The words had hardly left his lips, before Kit played an old-timeschoolgirl trick on him. Catching him by his collar, she twirled him aboutwith an odd twist until he knelt in front of her. Although they were justabout of an age, she was taller and stronger, and Billie shook himselfruefully when he rose. 

"You always catch a fellow off guard, " he said. 

"Do you good, " she retorted serenely. "Ever since you went away to school, you've had a high and mighty opinion of yourself. I don't know what willbecome of you after I've gone away, and there's no one who really knowshow to make you behave. Aren't these apples bully though? Do you supposethey'll mind very much if we stay just a few minutes? Don't you love thisold pond, Billie? Remember your flat-bottomed boat that always leaked whenwe used to go fishing in it. How I hated to take turns bailing it out. "

Billie dipped into his inner coat pocket and drew forth a little leatherbill fold, somewhat sheepishly. 

"I've got a snap shot here that I wanted you to take out with you. It'sfunny you just happened to speak about it. That hat nearly covered yourface, but anybody could tell it was you, Kit. It was the day we got caughtin the rain, when we were out after pickerel, and when the sun came out, Ben came along, and snapped us with my camera. "

Kit took the little photograph in her hand. There was plenty of light tosee it by. The little old, red, flat-bottomed boat out in midstream, withBillie standing, barelegged to his knees, straddling from the stem seat tothe rear middle one, while he strove persuasively with a big pickerel. Kitwas half kneeling in the other end of the boat, bailing for dear life, dressed in an old middy and wash skirt, with a boy's farm hat pulled lowover her eyes. 

"Wouldn't it be strange, Billie, if either of us were famous some day, "she said, thoughtfully, "and this picture would just be priceless? Youknow, that's one thing awfully nice about us two. We've always appreciatedeach other so much. I know you're going to be somebody special. Maybe itwill just be in natural history, but I wish it were exploring, orsomething awfully adventurous. "

Billie laughed comfortably, perching himself just below her on the heavytimbers of the old sluice gate. 

"Grandfather says I have a great responsibility on my shoulders, becauseI'm the last of the Ellis family. He says there's always been an Ellis inthe State Legislature at Hartford, ever since there was a Legislature, and just as soon as I'm old enough, he's going to set me to reading law. Gee, I wish he wouldn't. Think of being shut up all day long in anoffice. "

Far down the lane they heard the others calling them and Kit sprang up, scattering the apples as she did so. 

"I'd forgotten all about the party, " she exclaimed. "Anyway, I'm glad wehad a chance to talk, because I won't see you again before I leave. If Iwere you, I'd just read and study everything I could lay my hands on aboutentymology, all the time I was in school, and then when the Judge seesthat you're in dead earnest about it, he'll let you go on if Cousin Roxysays so. I heard Dad say that Mr. Howard knew more about insects than anyman he'd ever met, and that he was considered one of the coming experts ingovernment work. Why, Billie, it's just like a great surgeon or doctor, who is able to discover a certain germ that can be used as a toxin, onlyyou doctor Mother Nature. "

"I know, " Billie agreed, enthusiastically. "There was some fellow whodiscovered the cause of the wheat blight in the south a few years ago, andsomebody else is trying to land whatever is killing our chestnuts off. Kit, you're a bully pal. If it wasn't for you, I don't know whether I'dever have seen a chance to win out or not, but you do spur a fellow on. "

Kit laughed, and tagged him on the shoulder as she broke into a run. 

"You're it, " she cried. "Don't give any one else the credit for startingyou off in the way you know you ought to go. Just take a good deep breathand race for it. "

CHAPTER VI

EXPECTING "KIT"

Mr. Robbins had answered the first letter from Delphi, under Kit's carefulsupervision, and the acceptance was couched in language ambiguous enoughto please even her. 

It aroused no suspicions whatever in the minds of Dean Peabody or MissDaphne. The only question was, who was to meet the child in Chicago. Thethrough express would leave _him_ there, and in order to connect with theWisconsin trains it was necessary to make the change over to theNorthwestern Depot. 

Miss Daphne was far more perturbed over it than her brother. One of thelatter's favorite mottoes was inscribed in old English lettering over hisdesk:

 "_Never set in motion forces which you cannot control_. "

Having set in motion the coming guest, he believed firmly that anunfaltering Fate would direct his footsteps safely to Delphi. Cassius CatoPeabody had been peculiar all his life. He had been a peculiar boy, unsettled, studious, impractical. Miss Daphne was his younger sister, andever since her girlhood had tried to give him all the love andencouragement that others refused. She had trotted after him faithfullyand happily on all of his exploring expeditions. Perhaps one reason whythese had been so successful was because somehow she had always managed tosurround him with home comforts, even in the wilds of the upper Nile. TheDean had had his regular meals and clean changes of clothing in the shadowof Nineveh's ruins in far Chaldea, just as though he had been in his owndomicile. 

And perhaps the quaintest thing about it all was that Miss Daphne herself, no matter on what particular point of the globe she had happened to pitchher tent, had always retained her courage, although she had faced dangersthat the average woman would have fled from. Perhaps she carried in herheart an unfailing faith that Providence could not deny her protectionwhen she was enabling the Dean to give the benefit of his great gifts tothe world. 

Their house stood on the same hill as Hope College, the highest point inthe rising ridge of bluffs along the Lake Shore at Delphi. It was built ofdark red brick, a square double edifice, with long French windows and tworotunda shaped wings, somewhat in the French style. A grove of pine treesalmost hid it from view on its street side, the stately Norway pines thatKit always loved. The back of the house looked directly out over the lake, and the land here was frankly left to nature. Trees, grass and underbrushrioted at will, until they suddenly ended on the brow of the bluff, wherethere was a sheer declivity of sand to the beach. Looking at it frombelow, Kit afterwards thought it was like a miniature section of theYosemite, the sand had hardened into such fantastic shapes, and the stratain places was so plainly visible. 

Mrs. Robbins' telegram arrived the night before Kit herself. It was briefand non-committal. 

"Kit arrives Union Station, Chicago, Thursday, 10:22 A. M. "

"Kit, " repeated the Dean. "Humph! Nickname. Superfluous and derogatory. "

Miss Daphne took the telegram from his desk with a little smile that wasalmost tremulous with excitement. 

"It's probably the diminutive for Christopher, brother, " she said. "Ithink it's a nice name. I always liked the legend of St. Christopher. Somebody'll have to meet him down in Chicago. He might lose his head andtake the wrong train. "

"He's about fourteen, isn't he? Old enough to change from one train toanother, and use his tongue if he's in doubt. When I was fourteen, Daphne, I was earning my own living working on a farm, summers, and going to aschool in the winter time where we all had to work for our board. Neverhurt us a bit. The greatest trait of character you can inculcate in achild is self-reliance. "

Miss Daphne had a little way of appearing to listen while her brotherexpatiated on any of his favorite topics. It had grown to be a lovinghabit with her, and she had a way of answering absently. 

"Yes, dear, I'm quite sure of it, " which always satisfied him that he hadher attention. But now, she sat looking out the window and thinking, aperplexed expression on her face. It had not altogether been her desirethat the coming child should be a boy, although not one word had shebreathed of this to Dean Peabody. Their lives had run in tranquil grooves. Everything about their daily routine was as St. Paul suggested, "Decentlyand in order. "

The determination to take one of the Greenacre brood had been a suddenone. The Dean had been reading somebody's theory about the obligations ofage to youth. 

"Daphne, my dear, " he had remarked one evening, as the two sat quietly inthe old library, "we have been leading very narrow, selfish lives, and wewill suffer for it as we grow older. We have shut ourselves away fromyouth. I am seventy-four now, and what heritage am I leaving to the worldbeyond a few books of reference, and my collections? What I should do isto take some child, still in the impressionable stage, and impart to itall I know. "

Miss Daphne glanced up with a little amused twinkle in her eyes. 

"But, brother, what about the child? Surely you would require anexceptional child for such an experiment. One who would have the mentalityto grasp all that you were trying to impart to it. "

The Dean cogitated over this, pursing his lips and tapping his knuckleswith his rimless eye-glasses. 

"Possibly, " he granted, "and yet, Daphne, surely there would be far morecredit attached to planting the seed of knowledge where it needed muchcultivating. It has surprised and amazed me up at the college to find thatusually the children who appreciate an education are the farmer boys, andvery often the foreign element. "

Miss Daphne rocked to and fro gently. She knew her brother well enough tounderstand that this had become a fixed idea with him, and the easiest wayout was to find him an impressionable child. And then, it happened thatshe thought of Elizabeth Ann Robbins, their niece, and all her nestful ofyoung mouths to be satisfied with life's gifts and privileges. Sheremembered having one letter after the breaking up of the home on LongIsland. This had told them of Mr. Robbins' illness and breakdown. But withthe optimism that was inherent in every one of the family, there had beenno appeal for aid or cry of despondency over the sudden change in theirfortunes. 

Several times the Dean had written to Mr. Robbins but always onarchaeological topics. Some little point of controversy upon which hedesired confirmation. Somehow material needs never seemed to suggestthemselves to the Dean. Blessed with absolute self-reliance from hisboyhood, he had educated and made a success of himself, and he could notunderstand how any one could falter or repine in the race. Particularly, if Nature had granted them any precious ratio of Peabody blood. 

"Do you know, brother, " began Miss Daphne, in the bright, abrupt littleway she had, "I think it would be the right thing if we took one of theRobbins' children. There are four or five of them----"

"Boys or girls?" interrupted the Dean. 

"Well, now I'm not quite sure, but if my memory serves me, I think there'sa boy amongst them. I know the eldest girl is named Jean Daphne, becauseI've always sent her a silver spoon on her birthday since she was born. They're all of them over ten, I am sure. Why don't you just write toJerrold and make known your willingness? I am sure they would take it inthe spirit in which it was offered. "

CHAPTER VII

PERSONALLY CONDUCTED

So this was how it happened that the Dean's letter went forth to Gilead, and produced the hour when Kit stood on the platform of the Union Stationin Chicago, looking around her to discover any one who might appear to beseeking a small boy. 

Gradually the long platform that led up to the concourse cleared. Kit wentleisurely on, following the porter who carried her suit-case. She waslooking for some one who might resemble either the Dean or Miss Daphnefrom her mother's description of them. 

"As I remember him, " Mrs. Robbins had said, "the Dean was very tall, rather sparely built, but broad-shouldered and always with his head up tothe wind. His hair was gray, worn rather long and curly at the ends, andhe had the old-fashioned Gladstone whiskers. Miss Daphne was like alittle bird, a gentle, plump, busy Jenny Wren, with bright brown eyes anda little smile that never left her lips. I am sure you can't mistake them, Kit, for in their way they are very distinctive. "

Yet Kit was positive now that neither the Dean nor his sister had come tomeet her. She stood in the waiting-room quite unconscious of the attentionshe attracted, for Kit would have been singled out from the multitudeanywhere by reason of what Jean called "her unique individuality. "

She wore a dark tan serge traveling coat with a brown service cap to matchthat set a bit rakishly on her red curls. There was about her an air ofbuoyant and friendly self-possession, which always ingratiated her withany casual acquaintances. Therefore it was no wonder that Mr. Bellamyglanced at her several times with interest, even while his gaze soughtthrough the crowd for a young New England type of boy, bound for Delphi, Wis. 

But Kit noticed Mr. Bellamy. Noticed his alert anxiety as he walked upand down, eyeing every newcomer. He was eighteen or nineteen, andunmistakably looking for some one. Even while Kit watched him, she saw agirl of about her own age hurry up to him. Her voice reached her plainly, as she said:

"I've looked up and down that end, and I'm positive he isn't there. Oh, but the Dean will lecture you, Rex, if you miss him. "

At this identical moment, Rex's eyes met a pair of dancing, mischievousones, and Kit crossed over to where they stood. 

"I do believe you must be looking for me, " she said. "I'm Kit Robbins. "

"Oh, but we were expecting your brother, " exclaimed the other girl, eagerly. 

"I know, the whole family have, " said Kit, placidly, "for years and years. But there aren't any boys at all in our family, " and here she smiledsweetly, and quite innocently. "I'm afraid the Dean made a little mistake, didn't he? Do you think he'll mind so very much when he sees me?"

"Mind?" repeated Mr. Bellamy. "Why, I think he'll be perfectly delighted. My name is Rex Wade Bellamy, Miss Robbins, and this is my sister, Anne. We're close neighbors of the Dean and Miss Daphne, and as we happened tobe coming in town to-day they asked us to be sure to meet your----" Herehe hesitated. 

"My brother, " laughed Kit. "Well, here I am, and I only hope that mother'sletter reached them this morning, explaining everything. Of course, theydid write for a boy, and it takes so long for a letter to get out here andbe answered, that I told mother and Dad I knew it would be perfectly allright for me to come instead. Don't you think it will be?"

Anne's blue eyes were brimful of merriment. 

"Oh, dear, " she exclaimed. "I do wish I could go back with you, so I couldsee their faces when they find out. I don't live in Delphi. Mother and Ihave been here all summer so I could keep up my music at the conservatory. Rex has had to 'batch it' alone, but we'll be back in a week, so I'll seeyou then, and anyway, we're sure to visit back and forth. I'm awfullyglad you're a girl. "

"But I won't be here all winter, " Kit answered. "I've only come for acouple of months. On trial, you know. Maybe it'll only be a couple ofdays, if they're fearfully disappointed. "

Anne exchanged quick glances with her brother and he smiled as he led theway to the waiting car. 

"You don't know the elaborate plans the Dean has laid out for youreducation, " he said. "It will take you all winter long to live up to them, but I'm sure he will not be disappointed. "

Kit had her own opinion about this, still it was impossible for her tofeel apprehensive or unhappy, as the car sped over towards the Lake ShoreDrive. The novelty of everything after two years up in the Gilead hills ofrest was wonderfully stimulating. But it was not until they had left thecity and river behind and had reached Lincoln Park that she really gavevent to her feelings. It was a wonderful day and the lake lay insparkling ripples beyond the long stretch of shore. 

"Are we going all the way in the car?" she asked, eagerly. 

Rex shook his head. 

"No, only as far as Evanston. We'll drop Anne off, and have lunch withmother and then catch the train to Delphi. I have an errand for the Deanout at the University. "

"You know, " said Kit, "we lived right on the edge of Long Island Soundbefore we moved up to Connecticut, and ever since I was in rompers, I canremember going away somewhere to the seashore every summer, but I thinkyour lake is ever so much more interesting than the ocean. Somehow itseems to belong to one more. I always felt with the ocean as if it justcondescended to come over to my special beach, after it had rambled allover the world, and belonged to everybody. "

"But you have all the shells and the seaweed, and we haven't, " demurredAnne. "Before I ever went East, we had a couple of clam shells, justplain every-day old round clam shells, that had come from Cape May, and Iused to think they were perfectly wonderful because they had belonged inthe real ocean. "

After the rugged landscape of New England, Kit found this level land veryattractive. They passed through one suburb after another, with thebeautiful Drive following the curving shore line out to Evanston. Here shecaught her first glimpse of the Northwestern University, its terra-cottahued buildings showing picturesquely through the beautiful giant willowsaround the campus. 

They left Rex at the main entrance and drove on to where Mrs. Bellamy wasstopping. The houses made Kit think of those back at the Cove, with theirspacious lawns and large restful homes of plenty. Mrs. Bellamy was filledwith amusement when she heard the story of Kit's substitution of herselffor the boy the Dean had asked for. She was a tall, slender woman withashen gold hair and gray eyes, who seemed almost like an elder sister ofAnne's. They occupied a suite of rooms near the campus. 

"It is ever so much pleasanter than living in the heart of the city, " shesaid, "and Rex has so many friends among the boys out here that it makesit pleasant for both of the children. We used to live in North Evanstonbefore Mr. Bellamy took the chair of modern history up at Delphi. I wishthat you were going to live here for Anne's sake. "

"Well, that's almost selfish, mother, because Delphi is a hundred timesmore fun than Evanston, " Anne declared, "and we're sure to see a lot ofeach other, anyway, when school opens. Kit's promised to tell me all abouther sisters and Greenacres. It must be awfully queer to live up in thehills like that. "

"Queer?" repeated Kit, laughingly. "It's a joy to the soul and adiscipline to the body, Cousin Roxy says. "

Anne immediately wanted to know who Cousin Roxy was, and Kit waxedeloquent on her favorite topic. 

"She's an angel in a gingham apron, we girls think, " she concluded, "andyet she can take off the gingham apron and stand up and address any kindof a meeting. I just can't tell you all that she's been to us since welived there. "

Early in the afternoon Rex returned, and they caught the 2:45 local up toDelphi. Kit could hardly keep from looking out of the car window all thetime. Every now and then the rich blueness of the lake would flash throughthe trees in the distance, and to the westward there stretched long levelvistas of prairie land, dipping ravines which unexpectedly led one intowoodland ways. Gradually the bluffs heightened as they neared theWisconsin line above Waukegan, and just beyond the state line, between theshore and the region of the small lakes, Oconomowoc and Delevan, they camesuddenly upon Delphi. It stood high upon the bluff, its college dominatingthe shady serenity of its quiet avenues. 

"The Dean doesn't keep a carriage or car, " said Rex as they alighted atthe gray stone station covered with clambering vines. "Besides, hethought I was bringing a boy, who would not mind the hike up the hill!"

"I don't mind a bit, " returned Kit. "I like it. It seems so good to findreal hills after all. I thought everything out here was just prairie. I dohope they won't be watching for us. It will be ever so much easier if Ican just walk in before they get any kind of a shock, don't you know. "

Rex did not tell her which was the house until they came to the two tallsentinel poplars at the entrance to the drive. Kit caught the murmur ofthe waves as they broke on the shore below and lifted her chin eagerly. 

"Oh, I like it, " she cried. "This is it, isn't it? Isn't it a dear, drowsydreamful place? I only hope they'll let me stay. "

CHAPTER VIII

AT THE SIGN OF THE MUMMY

 "DEARLY BELOVED FAMILY:--

 "I can't stop to write separate letters to-night to all of you, because I'm so full of Delphitis that I can hardly think of anything else. First of all, Rex met me at the train with his sister Anne. It's quite all right to call him Rex, Aunt Daphne says. No relation to us but he lives next door, and is Uncle Cassius' pet educational proposition next to your little sister Katherine. 

 "Mother's letter had not arrived, and they were expecting 'brother' any moment, when Rex and I walked in on them, and right here I must say they showed presence of mind, and what Cousin Roxy would call resignation to the ways of Providence. The Dean's eyes twinkled as Rex explained things, and then I kissed Aunt Daphne, and explained to her too, and I'm sure that she was relieved. After Rex had gone, the Dean took me into his study after dinner, and we had a long heart-to-heart talk. I want you all to understand that he thinks I'm a good specimen of the undeveloped feminine brain. 

 "I am going to enter the preparatory class at the college in October, and take what the Dean calls supplementary lessons from him along special lines. I don't quite know all that this means, but I guess I can weather it. It probably has to do with what Rex called the 'cosmic makings, ' geology and all sorts of prehistoric stuff. I know the Dean mentioned one thing that began with a 'paleo' but I have forgotten the rest of it. I'll let you know later. 

 "I have a perfectly darling room. It looks right out over Lake Michigan. There's a big square bay window to it, that overhangs the edge of the bluff like the balcony of a Spanish beauty. Our back garden just topples right over into a ravine that ends up short on the shore. I never saw such abrupt little chasms in my life. Uncle Cassius was showing me the layers of strata there that a little recent landslide had shown up, and he says that the formation is just exactly like it is out west in Wyoming and Colorado. 

 "Aunt Daphne is just a dear. It's more fun to hear her tell of how she worried over a boy coming into the family. The whole house is filled from one end to the other with Uncle Cassius' treasures that he's been collecting for years. You're liable to stumble over a stuffed armadillo or a petrified slice of some prehistoric monster anywhere at all. I found a mummy case in the library closet, but there wasn't anything in it at all, and I was awfully disappointed. I don't know but what I like it after all, although I miss you fearfully, dear nestful of robins. I don't even dare to think there are about a thousand miles between us. 

 "This is all I can write to you to-night because I'm so sleepy I can hardly keep my eyes open. Aunt Daphne just came in and kissed me good-night. She told me again how glad she is that I'm not a boy. Uncle Cassius hasn't committed himself yet, but I think he's curious about me anyway. Good-night all, and write oodles of news to me. 

 "Devotedly yours, KIT. 

 "_Sign of the Mummy, Delphi, Wis_. "

At the same moment that Kit was writing home, the Dean and Miss Daphnestepped out on the broad veranda. Every evening about nine-thirtypassers-by might have seen the flickering glow of the Dean's good-nightcigar. He was not an habitual smoker, but the evening cigar was a sort ofnocturnal ceremonial. It gave him an excuse to step out into the fragrantdarkness of the garden walk for a quiet little stroll before bedtime, andusually Miss Daphne would try to join him. 

So to-night they paced together, discussing the girl with the red curlswho had come to them from far-off New England, in lieu of the boy they hadsent for. 

"There's no reason, " remarked the Dean, reflectively, "why the childshould not have a pleasant visit, since she is here. I have had a longconversation with her, and while I would not say that she wasexceptionally--er----"

"Bright, " suggested Daphne. 

"I should like to call it intellectual, " the Dean said kindly, "she iskeenly impressionable and self-reliant. I think I may be able to interesther, at least in a simplified course of study. I have always believed thatboys were more amenable to routine discipline in education than girls, butwe shall see. "

Miss Daphne's eyes, if he could only have seen them, held a twinkle ofmirth, and her smile was a little more pronounced than usual. 

"I think, " she said, softly, "that she is a very lovable, attractive girl. I am quite relieved, brother, not to have a boy in the house. "

Kit wakened the following morning with the sunlight calling to her. It wasearly, but back on the farm the girls usually rose about five. There didnot seem to be any one stirring yet, so she dressed quietly, and found herway down-stairs. The Dean kept a cook, gardener and second girl. Kit heardDelia, the latter, singing in the dining-room and went out at once to makefriends with her. 

"Is it very far down the bluff to the shore, Delia?" she asked, eagerly. "I'm dying to climb down there, if I have time before breakfast. "

"Sure, Miss, it's as easy as rolling off a log. You take the roundaboutway through the garden, and the little path, behind the tool shed, and youjust follow it until you can't go any farther, and there's the bluff. Ihaven't been down myself, but Dan says there's a little path you take tothe shore if you don't mind scrambling a bit. "

Kit waved good-bye to her and went in search of the path. She found Dan, the gardener, raking up leaves in the back garden. He was a plumprosy-cheeked old Irishman, his face wrinkled like a winter pippin, and helifted his cap at her approach with a smile of frank curiosity andapproval. 

A half-grown black retriever came bounding to meet her, his nose andforepaws tipped with white. 

"That's a welcome he's giving you you wouldn't have had if you'd been aboy, Miss, " Danny said, shrewdly. "I'm glad to meet you, and hope you'lllike it here. "

Kit was stroking Sandy's silky curls. His real name he told her wasLysander. Anything that the Dean had the naming of received thebenediction of ancient Greece, but Sandy, in his puppyhood, had managed toacquire a happy diminutive. 

"I don't see, " Kit said, laughingly, "why you dreaded a boy coming. I knowsome awfully nice boys back home, and there's one specially"--she pausedjust a moment, before she added--"named Billie. He's kind of related tous, because his grandfather married Cousin Roxy, and she's my father'scousin. It's a little bit hard to figure it out, but still we're related, and we're very, very good friends. I think he's just the kind of a boy theDean expected to see, but perhaps he'll get used to me. Do you think hewill?"

"Sure, it's like asking me could he get used to the sunshine, " answeredDanny, gallantly. --"If you leave it to Sandy to find the shore, he'll takeyou the quickest way. "

CHAPTER IX

ALL SANDY'S FAULT

Everything was so different from the Connecticut verdure and underbrush. Instead of the thick, lush growth which came from richly watered blackloam, here one found sand cherries and little dwarf willows and beechesspringing up from the sand. Tall sword grass waved almost like CousinRoxy's striped ribbon grass in the home garden, and wild sunflowers showedlike golden glow here and there. 

The beach was level and rockless, different entirely from the EasternAtlantic shores, but the sand was beautifully white and fine, and therewere great weather-beaten, wave-washed boulders lying half buried in thesand, also trunks of trees, their roots uprearing grotesquely like strangeheads of animals. Kit thought whimsically how the Dean might have addedthem with profit to his prehistoric collection. There was no glimpse orhint of the town to be seen down here. Not even a boat house, only onelong pier. About a mile and a half from shore was a lightship, and fartherout a white steamer showed in perfect outline against the blueness of themorning sky. 

Kit followed Sandy's lead, hardly realizing the distance she was covering, until he suddenly disappeared behind a nosing headland. When she roundedit, she saw a cottage built close under the shelter of the bluff. The sanddrifted like snow half-way up to its windows. It had been painted redonce, but now its old clapboards were the color of sorrel, andweather-beaten and wave-washed like the boulders. There were fish netsdrying on tall staples driven in behind a couple of overturned rowboats, and at that first glimpse it seemed to her as if there were childreneverywhere. Four stalwart boys from fourteen to eighteen worked over thenets, mending them; around the back door there were four or five more, andsitting in the sunlight in a low rocking-chair was an old woman aspicturesque as some ancient sibyl. 

Sandy seemed to greet them as old acquaintances, so Kit calledgood-morning in good old Yankee fashion. The boys eyed her, somewhataskance, and all of the children scurried like a flock of startledchickens as she came up the boardwalk to the kitchen door, but the oldgrandmother kept serenely on paring potatoes, calm-eyed and unembarrassed. 

"How do you do?" said Kit, smilingly. "I'm Dean Peabody's grandniece. Ijust came west yesterday, and Sandy brought me here this morning. I didn'tknow where he was going, but he seemed to know the way. "

The old woman's brown eyes followed the movement of the dog. 

"He ver' fine, that dog, " she said, deliberately. "He come ver' often. Iknow him since he is un petit chien, ver' small pup--so beeg. " Shemeasured with her hand from the ground. 

"Do you know the Dean?" Kit asked, sitting down on the doorstep besideher. "He lives up in the big house on the bluff, where the pine andmaples are. "

The old woman shook her head placidly. 

"I not go up that bluff in forty-eight year. "

Kit's eyes widened with quick interest. Just then a girl a little olderthan herself came out of the kitchen door. Two long braids of straightbrown hair hung over her shoulders, and her dress was slouchy andgypsy-like. She looked at Kit with quiet, steady scrutiny, and thenquestioningly over at the boys. But Kit herself relieved the tension. 

"Hello, " she said. "I think you've got an awfully nice place down here. Ilike it because it looks old like our houses back home. All the otherplaces I've seen since I came west have looked so newly painted. "

"This isn't new, " the girl told her slowly. "This place belonged to mygrandfather's father, Louis Beaubien. There were Indians around here then. Most of them 'Jibways. "

Jean used to say that the instant Kit's curiosity was aroused, she wasjust exactly like a squirrel after nuts, and here was an entirely newfield of romance and adventure to be uncovered. She fairly sniffed theair. The wonderful old grandmother, basking in the sun with memories ofthe past like a Mother Time. The strong, tanned boys working at the nets, the flock of dark-skinned youngsters, and the girl, Marcelle, whom she wasto know so well before her stay in Delphi was over. 

She hurried back, eager to ask questions about the Beaubiens, and foundherself late for breakfast the very first morning she was there. TheDean's face was a study as she entered, and Miss Daphne's fingersfluttered somewhat nervously over the coffee urn, and fragile cups. Kitwas out of breath, and so full of excitement that she did not even noticethe air was chill. 

"I've had a perfectly wonderful time, " she began. "No coffee, Aunt Daphne, please. Mother doesn't allow me to have any. It's all Sandy's fault. Ijust wanted to run down the bluff to the shore, and he led me way roundthat headland to the funniest old house, half-sunken in the sand, and Igot acquainted with the old grandmother and Marcelle. The boys and thelittle youngsters seemed half-scared to death at the sight of me, and so Ididn't bother to get acquainted with them yet. "

The Dean looked up at her over his glasses with a quizzical expression, and Miss Daphne fairly caught her breath. 

"The Beaubiens on the shore, my dear?" she asked. "Those half-breed FrenchCanadians?"

"Well, I didn't know just what they were, " answered Kit, cheerfully, "butI think they're awfully interesting. Don't you think that they look likethe Breton fisher people in some of the old French paintings? That girllooked just exactly like the youngest one crossing the sands at low tideat St. Malo. We have the painting at home, and I love it. And there wasanother girl about thirteen that I saw staring at me from the kitchen, andshe looked just like 'The Song of the Lark' girl where she's crossing thefields at dawn. "

"The Beaubiens have not a very good reputation, my dear, " the Deancoughed slightly behind his hand as he spoke. "The present generation maybe law-abiding, but even within my memory, the Beaubiens had a littlehabit of smuggling. "

"Smuggling?" repeated Kit, interestedly. "How could they smuggle way offhere?"

"Very easily. There were schooners that used to make the run down from theCanadian shore around the Straits carrying contraband goods in war time. Besides, there is the Indian strain in them, and they are squatters. Therehave been several lawsuits against them, and they have persisted instaying there on the shore when the property owners on the bluffdistinctly purchased riparian rights. "

"But, brother, the Beaubiens won all their suits, didn't they?" asked MissDaphne, pleasantly. "I'm sure the older boys are very industrious, and Ithink the girl Marcelle is strikingly attractive. You're not reallyforbidding Kit to go down there, I'm sure. "

The Dean said something that was lost in a murmur, for he had been one ofthe property owners vanquished in the lawsuits by the Beaubiens. Afterbreakfast Kit went up-stairs with Miss Daphne into her own littlesitting-room. This looked towards the street, out over the maple andpine-shaded lawn. Also, you could command a very fair view of the college. This was built of gray stone like a Norman castle, with square towers, andwas overgrown with woodbine just beginning to show a tinge of crimson. 

"It seems awfully queer, Aunt Daphne, " Kit said as she leaned out of thewindow, "to think that I am going there into the 'prep' class. Rex said onthe way up here----"

She leaned suddenly farther out and waved. 

"Hello, Rex, are you coming over?"

Rex glanced up at the radiant face as he came along the hedge-bordereddrive between his home and the Dean's and waved back in neighborlyfashion. 

"I'm going up to the campus now, " he said. "Ask Miss Daphne if she'd letyou be in the library club. There's a meeting this morning. "

"Could I, Aunt Daphne? Please say yes. I haven't joined anything in ages, "Kit begged. "I don't care whether it's a library club or an Indian powwow. I am just dying to be in something out here, where I'll meet every one andget acquainted. If you don't need me this morning----" She hesitated, butsome of her enthusiasm had caught Miss Daphne, and she immediatelysuccumbed to the whim of the moment. 

"Why, I think, my dear, that I'll go with you. The Dean has taken up somuch of my time that I've rather lost my interest and activity in affairs. You go down with Rex, and I'll join you presently. "

The Dean's desk stood in a wide square bay window which overlooked thedriveway. He had settled down to his morning's portion of labor and wasblocking out a curriculum of study for Kit, when he happened to glance up, and beheld the trio passing happily out through the gates. Certainly theydid not realize, nor did he at that moment, that already the leaven ofyouth was at work in the old shadowy house behind the sentinel pines. 

CHAPTER X

THE DEAN'S OUTPOSTS

The first budget of family letters arrived the following week. Kit fairlypounced on them when the mail carrier came up the walk, for she had beenwatching anxiously at each delivery. After all, it was the first time shehad been away from home, and after the first excitement and novelty hadworn off, her heart, she told herself laughingly, "harked back to Dixie. "

It seemed the Dean had written to her father on the night of her arrival, and this was a surprise to Kit. 

"It is a great relief to us all to know that you have made such afavorable impression, " Mr. Bobbins' letter read. "After all, it wassomewhat of an experiment, and I confess that I was rather sceptical ofthe result, knowing the Dean as I do. Try to adapt yourself as much aspossible to the home conditions there, Kit. You know, we have alwayslived somewhat of an easy-going life so far as discipline and set routinego, and consequently you girls have been brought up in a happy-go-luckyfashion. Do you remember what Emerson had inscribed over his study door?'Whim. ' The old Concord philosopher and Thoreau have been close pals ofmine, and I fear that I adopted at an early age the same motto. Beconsiderate of all the Dean's notions, and make yourself as useful andlovable as you can while you are with them, dear. 

"The rebuilding of the house is going along splendidly, and we hope tohave our Christmas there. I have followed the old plan, but with someimprovements, I think, putting in a good furnace, and enlarging thedining-room and kitchen. The veranda also will extend around three sidesof the house instead of two, and we are building the supports of fieldstone. There will be an outdoor fireplace on the west side also, and Iknow you will enjoy this. "

Enjoy it? Kit stared ahead of her at the shady lawn. Miss Daphne wasbending over nasturtium beds gathering the black seeds, but instead, Kitsaw in a vision ahead a great hickory fire burning in the outdoor verandafireplace with the mystery of the night crooning low over the sleepinghills. Her mother's letter came next. Kit read it with delight. She couldtell just exactly the mood the mother bird was in when she wrote, just howher conscience pricked her for having been a party to Kit's plan. 

"Of course, while the Dean's letter was very nice, still I am sure he felt'put upon, ' as Cousin Roxy would say. I am ever so sorry that we did notwrite sooner, and tell them that you were coming. It rests with you now, Kit, to make yourself so adaptable that they will forget all about the boythey wanted. I have no objection to your staying for the winter term atHope College. Between ourselves, dear, our plans are a little unsettledhere. Father is certain that the house will be ready for us this winter, but you know we have kept from him any worry about financial matters, andI am afraid he figures on a wider latitude in expense than we can afford. At the little farm here, and with you and Jean both away we could managevery well. In order to rebuild at all, we had to part with some securitieswhich I had always hoped to save for you girls. It will be sad, won't it, if the royal princesses have to be launched without wedding chests anddowries?

"Make all the friends that you possibly can among your college mates. Youwon't realize it now, but so many of these friendships become preciouslifelong ones. Billie is leaving this week for school. You remember Mr. Howard, who came to look after our trees? He has been staying up at theJudge's, and took a great interest in Billie. Instead of going back toBlackwood Hall, Billie is going on to a school in Virginia, not far fromWashington, that Mr. Howard suggested sending him to. He is a greatbeliever in the value of environment that is associated with historictraditions. "

Kit read this last over twice, but could not agree with it at all. She hadalways liked the pioneer outlook, the longing to break new trails, thestarting of little colonies in clearings of one's own making. If there wasan ivy around her castle, she wanted the joy of planting it herself, andseeing it grow from her own efforts. 

Jean had always told her that this came from the distaff side of thefamily. There had been a Virginian ancestor long ago, who had broken awayfrom the conventional life on the big river estate, near Roanoke, and hadgone faring forth into the wilderness. This was Kit's favorite ancestor, John Carisbrook. He had wandered far through the west, and had married agirl in one of the outlying settlements along the Ohio River, a girl withFrench blood in her, Gabrielle de la Chapelle. Kit always liked to believethat it was from these two she had received her love of adventure, and oftrail blazing. 

She had never felt an affinity with "haunts of ancient peace" like Jeanand Helen. Only that week she had been reading in one of the Dean's earlyEnglish histories of real rooftrees. How, in the earliest times, primitivepeople built their houses around some selected giant oak or other king ofthe forest, with the massive trunk itself upholding the structure. If shecould have done so, Kit would have gladly selected for herself her ownspecial tree in the forest primeval, rather than have fallen heir to anyancestral castle such as Helen hankered for. 

So, the little town perched high on the bluff above the lake had appealedto her mightily. Although from a western standpoint it was quite old, dating at least five years before the outbreak of the Civil War, from thecolonial standpoint it was a mere youngster. 

"Historic tradition?" repeated Kit. "When all around here are the oldIndian trails, and the footprints left by the French explorers. I justwish I could get Billie out here for a little while. He'll settle down insome old school that thinks it is wonderful because John Smith built acamp-fire on its site once upon a time, or Pocahontas planted corn in itsback field. "

Kit sighed, tucked her mother's and father's letters in her sweater pocketand started off for her favorite lookout point on the bluff. Here, withSandy crouching at her feet, she read the three letters from the girls. Jean's was full of plans for her coming trip to New York, She was notgoing to Boston this year, but Aunt Beth had promised her three months atthe Art school, and she was to take pupils besides, to help out expenses. 

"You know, if the war had ended as we planned, I could have gone to Italywith Carlota and the Countess, but the villa is still used as a hospital, and though I am dying to go, Dad and mother won't hear of it. Don't I wishI were twenty so I could do some Red Cross work and get over? It seems soperfectly futile dabbling away at one's own little petty ambitions, withhumanity needing one so. "

That was quite like Jean, Kit thought, glancing over the rest of theletter hurriedly. Cousin Roxy had given a community social, and Mr. Howardhad interested Jean considerably, especially as he told her he was boundfor France the first of November. Jean was always so easily impressedjust the first few times she met a person. It took Kit a long time toreally admit a stranger to her circle of selected ones, and she had neverquite forgiven Stanley Howard for trespassing in the berry patch, eventhough it had been in the cause of science. Besides, the last year, Jeanhad seemed to grow somewhat aloof from the others. Perhaps it had been hertrips away from home, or her ambition. Kit could not precisely define thechange, but it was there, and she felt that Jean troubled herselfaltogether too much over things unseen. One of Kit's favorite mottoes wasfrom Stevenson:

 "In things immaterial, Davey, be soople. "

Helen's letter was all about the opening of school, and Doris' askedquestions about Delphi. 

"When you write, do tell us about the things that happen there, and notjust what you think about it. I don't like descriptions in books, I likethe talk part. You know what I mean, Kit. Has Uncle Cassius got any petsat all?"

Kit laughed over this. Bless her heart, if she could only have seen UncleCassius' pets. His stuffed mummy and horned toads, the chimpanzee skullbeaming at one from a dark corner, and the Cambodian war mask fromanother. It seemed as if every time she looked around the house she foundsomething new, and with each curio there went a story. Oddly enough, theDean thawed more under Kit's persuasion when she begged for the storiesthan at any other time. After each meal, it was his custom to take what hecalled "four draws" in his study. Kit found at these times that he was inhis best humor. Relaxed and thoughtful, he would lean back in the deepMorris chair between the flat-topped desk and the fireplace, and smokeleisurely. Even his pipe had come from Persia, its amber stem very slenderand beautifully curved, its bowl a marvel of carving. 

Kit sat pondering over her father's and mother's letters, after puttingthose of the two girls away. School would begin in another week, and shewas to enter the sophomore preparatory, which corresponded to the secondyear in high school back home. And yet, after what her father hadwritten, she felt that she was not giving the Dean a square deal. 

The odor of tobacco came through the library window, and acting on thespur of the moment, she stepped around the corner of the veranda andperched herself on the window sill. 

"Are you busy, Uncle Cassius?" Anybody who was well acquainted with Kitwould have suspected the gentleness of her tone, but the Dean looked overat her with a little pleased smile. Her coming was almost an answer to hisreverie. 

"Not at all, my dear, not at all. In fact, I was just thinking of you. Iam inclined to think after all that we will begin with the geologicalperiods. I wish you to get your data assembled in your mind on prehistoricpeoples before we take up any definite groups. "

"That's all right, " Kit answered, comfortably. "I don't mind one bit. I'lldo anything you tell me to, Uncle Cassius, because, " this very earnestly, "I do feel as if I hadn't played quite fair. I mean in coming out here, and landing on you suddenly, without warning you I was a girl, and I wantto make up to you for it in every possible way. I'll study bones and ruinsand rocks, and anything you tell me to, but I want to make sure first thatyou really like me. Just as I am, I mean, before you know for certainwhether all this is going to 'take. '"

The Dean glanced up in a startled manner and looked at the face framed bythe window quite as if he had never really given it an interested scrutinybefore. Not being inclined to sentiment by nature, he had regarded Kit sofar solely from the experimental standpoint. Since she had turned out tobe a girl, he had decided to make the best of it, and at least try theeffect of the course of instruction upon her. The personal equation hadnever entered into his calculation, and yet here was Kit forcing it uponhim, quite as plainly as though she had said:

"Do you like me or don't you? If you don't I think I had better go backhome. "

"Well, bless my heart, " he said, rubbing his head. "I thought that we hadsettled all that. Of course, my dear, the reason I preferred a boy wasbecause, well"--the Dean floundered, --"because scientists hold a consensusof opinion that through--hem--through centuries of cultivation, I may say, collegiate development, --the male brain offers a better soil, as it were, for the--er--er----"

"The flower of genius?" suggested Kit, happily. "I don't think that's soat all, Uncle Cassius, and I'll tell you why. You take it on the farm downhome. Dad says that our land in Gilead is no good because it's been workedover and over, and it's all worn out, but if you plow deep and strike abrand new subsoil you get wonderful crops. Just think what a lovely timeyou'll have planting crops in my unplowed brain cells. "

The first laugh she had ever heard came from the Dean's lips, although itwas more of a chuckle. His next question was apparently irrelevant. 

"How do you think you're going to like Hope College?"

"All right, " Kit responded, cheerfully. "I only hope it likes me. I've meta few of the boys and girls through Rex and Aunt Daphne, and I like themawfully well. You know, down home they're nice to you if they know who youare, and all about your family. Cousin Roxy says it's better to have aprivate burial lot well filled with ancestors than your name in the SocialRegister. But out west here it seems as if they either like you or not. Just when they first meet you, you're taken right into the fold on thestrength of what you are yourself. Rex said an awfully funny thing theother day when Barty Browning declared that he had two Indian chiefs inhis family, and Rex asked me if we had a little 'tommyhawk' in ourfamily. "

The door opened with a little, light, deprecating tap first from MissDaphne's finger-tips. She glanced around the side of it cautiously to besure she was not disturbing the Dean, and smiled whimsically when she sawthe two. The Dean's pipe had gone out, and he was leaning over the desklistening as eagerly as though he had been a boy himself, while Kit, withher hands clasped behind her head, chatted. Usually people conversed withthe Dean, they never chatted, and Miss Daphne realized that Kit hadalready passed the outposts of the Dean's defenses. 

CHAPTER XI

"KEEP OUT"

Hope College was founded in 1871. This date was graven on the cornerstone, which the Dean had been careful to show Kit, telling her at thesame time how the first settlers through the middle Northwest followed thecustoms of the Puritans and Cavaliers. 

"A church, a schoolhouse for every clearing, and a college before thecounty court-house. "

It seemed queer to Kit to think of Hope College as being any kind of anhistoric pile, but Rex had assured her anything that dated before Custerwas ancient history, and if you wanted to get almost prehistoric, you wentback to Lewis and Clarke, and the Jesuit explorers. 

"Why, back at Gilead, " Kit told him, "even the mounting stone at CousinRoxy's had 1721 on it. "

The college was built of gray field stone covered with climbing woodbineand Virginia creeper, and it dominated the little town. There were fivebuildings in the campus group, the main building, laboratory, library andgymnasium, boys' dormitory, and chapel. 

Kit never forgot the first morning when the classes met in Assembly Hall, and the Dean addressed them on the work and aims of the coming year. Forthe life of her, she could not keep her mind on all he was saying or thesolemnity of the moment, because, just at the very last minute when thechapel chimes stopped ringing, Marcelle Beaubien entered through the darkgreen swinging doors at the back of the big, crowded hall. It seemed asthough every one's eyes were watching the platform, but Kit saw theslender, silent figure standing there alone. She was dressed in black, athin black lawn, with collar and cuffs of dark red linen, and her heavybrown hair was braided in two long plaits down her back. She waited there, it seemed to Kit, expectant on the threshold of opportunity, not knowingwhich way to go, and without a friendly hand extended to her in welcome orguidance. 

Norma Riggs, who sat next to Kit, glanced back to see what had attractedher attention, and made a funny little deprecating sound with her mouth. 

"I never thought she'd have the nerve to really do it, " she whispered. "Isn't she odd?"

A quick impulsive wave of indignation swept over Kit, and she rose fromher seat, passing straight down the aisle without even being aware of thecurious glances which followed her. She took Marcelle by storm. 

"You're in my class, aren't you?" she whispered quickly. "It's right overhere, and there's a seat beside me. I don't know any one either, and I'mso glad to see you, so I'll have some one to talk to. "

Marcelle never answered, but smiled with a quick flash of appreciation, the smile which always seemed to illumine her rather grave face. Shefollowed Kit back to the latter's seat, and Norma exchanged glances withher right-hand neighbor, Amy Parker. Kit was altogether too new torealize just exactly what she had done. Being the Dean's grandniece, sheconsidered herself unconsciously a privileged person. As a matter ofcourse, Miss Daphne had accompanied her that morning, and introduced herto four or five girls in the sophomore "prep" class, who came from therepresentative best families of the town. Also, as a matter of course, shehad been welcomed as one of them, but Kit, with her democratic notions, never even realized that she occupied one of the seats of the mighty, in acircle of the favored few, and that she had smashed all tradition byintroducing into that circle a Beaubien. In fact, even if she had known, she would probably have been thoroughly indignant at any such spirit amongthe girls themselves. 

Jean and Helen were the natural-born aristocrats in the family, Kit alwayssaid. They loved to feel themselves aloof and not part of the populace. 

"The sedan chair and palanquin for both of you, " Kit had been wont to say, scornfully, "but give me a good horse and a wide trail, or if I can'thave the horse, I'll hike. "

And here she loved to quote Stevenson's "Vagabond" to them. 

 "Give to me the life I love, Let the lave go by me, Give the jolly heaven above And the byway nigh me. 

 "Wealth I ask not, hope nor love, Nor a friend to know me; All I ask, the heaven above, And the road below me. "

The whole morning was taken up with the assigning of students to classes. Kit loved the curious bustle and excitement of it all. It was so differentfrom the small high school back home, and there were many more boys andgirls than she had expected to see. Almost, as she passed from room toroom, through the different buildings, she wished she were staying rightthere as a year pupil. Amy introduced her to her closest friend, PeggyBarrows, a girl from South Dakota, who took them up to her quarters inone of the dormitories. 

"Dear me, " Kit said, looking around her speculatively. "I wish I weregoing to live here. Peggy, you'll have to entertain us often. It's so kindof solitary and restful, isn't it, up here?"

"Solitary, " scoffed Peggy. "I've been here four days getting settled, andyou might just as well call the side show of a circus solitary. Thereisn't even the ghost of privacy. I'm mobbed every time I try to sit andmeditate. "

"Who wants to meditate, anyway?" asked Amy. "Don't you feel 'the rushingtorrent of ambition's flood sweeping away the barriers' and--what else didthe Dean say?"

"Log jam, " Kit put in. "That's what he meant, log jam of laziness. Haveyou discovered all these shelves in your wardrobe? I'd take off thosedoors and hang lovely velvety curtains in front and make a bookcase out ofit. "

"Will you gaze upon her Chinese tea cupboard, " exclaimed Norma, standingbefore the high black box, with one middle shelf, and little green andgold curtains hung before the tea set. "Where did you purloin that, Peg?"

"Peter gave it to me for fifty cents. It used to be a dumb waiter, and Ipainted it black myself. Isn't it beautiful? Have you seen Charity's room?Wait. " Peggy darted out of her door and across the hall. On the dooropposite a card bore the legend in large black letters:

 "KEEP OUT. " "STUDY HOUR. "

"That's perfectly ridiculous, " she said, tapping just the same. "Nobody'sstudying to-day. Let us in, Charity. "

A sound of scraping over the floor, and muffled giggles came to thewaiting ones in the hall, then the door was thrown wide, and Kit caughther first glimpse of Charity Parks, the best loved girl at Hope. She wasabout seventeen, but a short, roly-poly type, with curly rumpled hair andgray eyes that never seemed to keep from mirth. There were five othergirls with her, and spread over the couch, chairs, and table were writingmaterial and papers. 

"We're frightfully busy, girls, " Charity said, discouragingly. "What doyou want?"

"Just to look at your room. Isn't it inspiring, Kit? This is Kit Robbins, Charity. "

"Hope you'll like it at Hope. " Charity gave Kit her hand with a warm grip. "I'm from the east, too, only not so far as you are, but we thinkPennsylvania's east, out here. How do you like the decoration?"

Kit liked it, and said so emphatically. The room was in Chinese blue andblack, tea table, chiffonier and two chairs painted a dull black, and thewalls tinted a soft deep gray blue. 

"I hunted all over Chicago for Chinese things, and I found a few. Isn'tthis a celestial rose jar? I think it's big enough for a pot of basil. Whowas the gentle poet that sang of the lady who buried her fond lover's headin a flower pot and watered it with her tears?"

"Bet you use it for orange punch before the year is up, " Peggy laughed. "Oh, Kit, she makes wonderful fruit punch. Each guest brings her ownfavorite fruit, then Charity mashes them all together and it's delicious. "

"I wish I stayed here all the time, " Kit exclaimed. "You miss the fun, being a day student, don't you?"

"Never mind, child, " Charity told her consolingly, "we will have somespecial daylight celebrations all for you. Now clear out, girls, becauseI'm dying to lay out the first edition schedule. "

"Charity's editor of the '_Glamour_, '" Peg said. "The boys call it the'_Clamour_, ' but we don't mind. It used to be the '_Gleam_, ' but wethought 'Glamour' carried more intensity with it. Kit's going to dash offsome little simple trifle in spare moments for us, aren't you? Amy writespoetry, free verse. Show them that bit you made up in Assembly. "

Amy took out a sheet of copy paper from her Ancient History, and readaloud:

 "Oh, wayward maid, Hast strayed Too far from native strand. Lost in a maze, the savage gaze Becomes a frightened, spellbound gaze, By fond ambition fanned. "

"Sounds just like Pope, doesn't it?" said Kit. "I like that last line, 'byfond ambition fanned. '"

 "Seek not the sacred hall of fame, Cling to thy simple life, On Hope's high banner, Beaubien, Shall never, never----"

But Kit interrupted pointblank. She was sitting up very straight on thedivan, with a certain expression around her mouth, and a very steadypurposeful look in her eyes, which even Jean at home paid attention to. 

"Just a minute, " she said, quickly. "Do you mean Marcelle Beaubien?Because if you do, I don't think that's fair. "

CHAPTER XII

KIT LOCATES A "FOUNDER"

Peg patted her in a conciliatory manner. 

"Now, my child, " she said, "curb that swift and rising wrath, and bottlethe vials thereof. What is Hecuba to you, or you to Hecuba?"

"Poor little Peggy, " Charity murmured, "getting into trim for aShakespeare drive? You know, Kit, our Peg is president of the PortiaDramatic Club, and the mantle doth not rest lightly on her youngshoulders. "

But Kit could not be diverted, and the color rose somewhat belligerentlyin Amy's cheeks, too;

"I don't see, " she said, "why you feel that you have to take MarcelleBeaubien's part. If you knew all about her the way we girls do, you'd lether alone. "

"I don't see how she ever came up here anyway, " Norma remarked. "It'sjust exactly as if one of her brothers tried to come in. Do you think theboys would stand for that?"

"Why on earth shouldn't they?" demanded Kit, hotly. "And I'd like to knowwhat they've got to say about it anyway. I don't think that's the collegespirit. Any one who wants an education and is willing to work for itshould be admitted. "

"Yes, but if they had any sense at all, " responded Norma, placidly, "theywouldn't put themselves into the position of being snubbed. You can talkall you want to about the college spirit from the standpoint of Deans andfaculties, but when all's said and done, it's the student spirit thatrules. I'll bet that she doesn't stay here a month. She hasn't any one tohelp her at home, and can't afford tutoring, so she'll just peter out. "

"Dear, dear friends of my youth, " Charity exclaimed, on her knees beforethe couch, "here are some wonderful chocolates and cheese straws andpimentoes. Let's have a love feast immediately and bury the hatchet. Kit, your hair isn't red enough to warrant any such exhibitions, and you'llhave to cut them out. "

The gong sounded in the hall below for afternoon classes, and there wasjust time to snatch a little refreshment before they joined the othergirls trooping through the corridors. Kit found herself watching Marcelle. There was a peculiar aloofness about the girl which seemed to put almost awall of defense around her. She was intensely interested in everything, one could see that plainly, except the other students, and it seemed as ifshe simply overlooked them. When Kit came down the staircase, she glancedinto the library and saw Marcelle in there alone, bending down before thelong wall bookcases. Across the wide hall there were groups of boys andgirls in the two long double parlors, laughing and talking together, andevery couch and settee along the T-shaped hall was occupied, but Marcellewas alone. 

Whoever had built Hope College had managed to work out some of his dreamsof old world beauty. The library was wainscoted in some dull satinfinished wood, with the graining of olive wood. In the west wall was set adeeply embrasured mullioned window of stained glass, with the figure of ayoung girl in white in college cap and gown, her face upturned, as sheseemed to come towards one through a garden of foxgloves, pale-pink andhyacinth in hue. Beneath was the one word, Hope. Scattered about the roomon top of bookcases and shelves were the usual beloved bits of bronze andstatuary, Dante's head, the Niké, with widespread wings, busts of Emerson, Longfellow, Lowell, Whitman, Whittier, Mrs. Stowe, Louisa Alcott, and abeautiful bowed head of Mrs; Browning, her curls half-shadowing her face. 

Marcelle had a volume of "Treasure Island" in her hand, illustrated incolor. She turned in surprise at the touch of Kit's hand on her shoulder. 

"I thought we could walk down towards the bluff together, because we gothe same way, " said the latter. "How do you like it here?"

"I like it, " responded Marcelle, slowly, with a certain dignified shynessthat was characteristic of her. "My mother has told me all about it. Sheliked the library when she was here. She told me where her room wasup-stairs, too, but I did not want to go up while the girls were there. "

"Let's go up now, while they're all down-stairs, " Kit suggestedimpulsively. "I'll take you. Which dormitory was she in?"

"Her name was Mary Douglas. It is the Douglas Dormitory. Her father wasone of the founders here, Malcolm Douglas. "

Kit listened in utter amazement and with a rising sense of joy. Here wasMarcelle Beaubien, flouted and disdained by the little crowd of girls whohappened to live in a certain restricted district of Delphi, but claimingher grandfather was a founder of the college. At that very moment Kitplanned her surprise on the girls. 

As they walked through the hall together, Pauline and the other girlsfollowed them with their glances and smiled. The two paused before a bigbronze tablet with the name of the founders on it. There it was, thirdfrom the last, Malcolm Douglas, and date, 1871. 

"He came from Canada, " said Marcelle, "and settled here. Later on he wentinto Minnesota, and on into Dakota as one of the first of the Indianfighters in the Sioux wars there, but he was really seeking gold. Thefamily was very poor after he died, but my mother came here for two years, and even when I was a little bit of a girl, seven or eight, years old, before she died, she used to tell me how she loved it, and that I mustcome here, too. "

"Don't any of your brothers want to come?" asked Kit impulsively. "They'reall older than you, aren't they?"

Marcelle shook her head with a curious little smile. 

"They are all Beaubien, every one. They eat, and they sleep and fish, thatis all. "

Kit led the way to the upper floor, where the dormitories were, andmeeting Charity, she asked the way to the Douglas. 

"Why, you were in that one to-day, " replied Charity in surprise. "It's ourdormitory, don't you know?"

"Oh, thank you so much, " Kit said, with suspicious alacrity, as she guidedMarcelle down the corridor, and Charity glanced back at them both, speculatively, wondering just what special business could take two new daygirls into the most exclusive dormitory at Hope. 

CHAPTER XIII

ENTER THE ROYAL MUMMIES

Kit deliberately planned her campaign for the following week, and the onlygirl she took into her confidence was Anne Bellamy. It had been thegreatest relief, somehow, when Anne returned to Delphi for the fall term. There was something good-natured and comfortably serene about Anne thatmade her companionship a relief from that of the other girls. Jean oftensaid back home that Kit was such a bunch of fireworks herself, she alwaysneeded the background of a calm silent night or a flaccid temperament, toset her off properly. 

"You know, Anne, " Kit exclaimed, sinking with a luxurious sigh of contentdown among the cushions on the broad couch in Anne's room, "I'd giveanything, sometimes, if I'd been an only child; of course, you've got abrother, but you're the only girl. You don't know what it is to be one offour. I share my room with Helen, back home, and all honors with Jean. Then, of course, Doris is the baby, and while we all love each otherdevotedly, still you do have to elbow your way through a large family, ifyou want to keep on being yourself. I read somewhere about old JoaquinMiller, the poet of the Sierras. Know him?"

Anne shook her head, as she combed out her long brown hair, holding oneroll with her teeth. 

"No, I don't suppose you do, " Kit went on happily. "That's one reason whyyou and I are going to be fearfully good friends, 'cause you don't knoweverything in creation. It seems to me I can't speak of anything at all athome now that Jean doesn't know more about it than I do, or Helen thinksshe does, which is worse. Don't mind me this morning. I just got a familybudget, full of don'ts. "

"Yes, and you're just as likely as not to be homesick to-morrow, " laughedAnne. "Go on about your poet. "

"Oh, nothing, except that he didn't believe there should be more than oneroom in a house, and he built little individual houses all over 'TheHeights' out in California. I'd love to do that back home, with adining-room on one green hill, and the kitchen down in the, valley. "

"You'd need a mountain railway on an up grade, when it came meal time. "

"Well maybe, " Kit assented, "but at least I'd have my own bower in a pinegrove, and each of the royal princesses could go and do likewise. But thatisn't what I came over for. You know Marcelle Beaubien? The girls don'tlike her going to Hope. "

"Don't they?" Anne asked, mildly. "Well, what are they going to do aboutit? I thought that's what colleges were for. Who's against her?"

"I don't think it's exactly anything definite or violent, but you know howmighty uncomfortable they can make her. There's Amy Roberts and Norma andPeggy Porter and the Tony Conyers crowd. "

"She won't miss anything special, even if they do try to snub her, "answered Anne laughingly. 

"This is my second year at Hope, and I want to tell you right now thatCharity rules in the Douglas Dormitory. If you can get her on Marcelle'sside, the other girls will trot along like little lambkins. "

"Do you suppose, " Kit leaned forward impressively, as she sprang her plan, "do you suppose Charity would loan her room for a Founders' Tea?"

"A Founders' Tea, " repeated Anne. "What's that?"

Kit proclaimed grandiloquently:

"A tea in honor of Malcolm Douglas, pioneer founder of Hope College, andgrandfather of Marcelle Beaubien. "

Anne's blue eyes widened in amazement, and her hair-brush was suspended inmid-air. 

"How did you find out?" she whispered. "Does Marcelle know?"

"Of course she knows. She told me all about it herself, but I don't thinkshe's got sense enough to realize what a nice handy little club ofdefense it gives her against the girls to spring it on them at the tea, and you've got to help me get it up. We'll coax Charity into loaning usher room first, and I'll look up all about Malcolm Douglas, and write acute little essay about the historic founding of Hope. Then we'll send outmysterious little invitations, and just say on them, 'To meet a Founder'sgranddaughter. '"

"When?" asked Anne, reflectively. "You ought to do it soon, so if it worksthey'll take her into the different clubs right away. I think you ought totry and see Charity to-day after classes and get her advice. Anotherthing, Kit, do you suppose Marcelle would have any relics around of hergrandfather that we could kind of spring on them unexpectedly?"

Kit's eyes kindled with appreciation. 

"That's a worthy thought. Sort of corroborative evidence, as it were. Anne, you're a wonder. " She sprang up from the couch, her hands deep inher white sweater pockets, looking very fit and purposeful. "I think it'sup to me to go and prepare Charity. You make out a list of things thatwe'll want for the tea. You'd better be the refreshment chairman, andwe'll try and make it a week from next Saturday. "

"Too far off, " Anne demurred. "Better do it while it's fresh in your mind, before you start lectures. "

"I believe I'll go over now. It's only a little after five, and that'llkeep me from answering that family budget until I've calmed down. If yousee any one looking for me, tell them I'll be right straight back. I'llstop in the library and look up Malcolm's historic record, on my way, soyou may truthfully announce I'm delving into research. "

Kit went up the hill road buoyantly. Dearly she loved to set a goal aheadof her, and then run for it. Delphi had appeared rather barren as a fieldfor her real endeavor, but now with the opening of school, she could seeher way ahead to conscientiously starting something, which she sincerelyhoped she could finish. Coming along the sidewalk which bounded the campuson the south, she met Charity on her way back from the post-office. 

"This is ever so much better than going up-stairs, " Kit said. "Let's walkaround the campus twice, while I unburden my soul. "

At the second lap, the whole plan had been matured by Charity's quicksympathy and understanding. 

"And it will do them good, too, " she said, as they parted. "That's not thecollege spirit by a long shot, and you're perfectly right, Kit, but justthe same it's easier to get it on the girls in this way with a nicefriendly accompaniment of sandwiches, and iced tea, and whatever you do, Kit, don't breathe one blessed word to anybody. I wouldn't even tellMarcelle herself that she is to be the guest of honor. She'd run like adeer, if she even suspected it. "

The date of the Founders' Tea was set for the following Saturday. Kitevolved the invitations herself and wrote them on blank cards, as sheremembered doing back at the Cove in the days of opulence andentertainment. 

 _Saturday, October Second, Three to Five_. 

 You are invited to attend a Founders' Tea, Douglas Dormitory, Hope College, Miss Allen's Study. 

"Diffident, modest and correct, " quoth Kit, critically, when she showedthem to Anne. "Now, what are you going to eat, Anne? Isn't there somethingbesides just plain tea? Couldn't we fix up some kind of glorifiedlemonade?"

"I've got it all down, " answered Anne. "Grape juice, ginger ale andlemons. It's wonderful, and six kinds of sandwiches. Cheese with pimento, and cheese with chopped walnuts, lettuce and egg, chopped raisins withbeaten white of egg, and raspberry jam and cream cheese, sardine onlettuce with mayonnaise and deviled ham, with macaroons on the side. "

"It's perfectly dandy, " exclaimed Kit. "Aunt Daphne told me when I firststarted in that I could give a spread for the girls, and this is it. Afterit's all over, I'll tell her about Marcelle, and I know she'll enjoy itand approve. I think we ought to get Peggy or Amy to write some kind ofan anniversary ode for us. It might begin like this:

 "Oh, have you a family founder, On your ancestral tree, Who laid the corner-stone of Hope On the campus at Del-phee. "

"Better finish that up, and read it at the tea, " advised Anne; "there'ssomething so spirited about it. Is Charity going to decorate the study forthe festal occasion? We ought to have something sort of different, don'tyou think so?"

"Pioneer relics would be the only thing, and I don't know where we'd scarethose up. "

"There's a whole cabinet of them in the Dean's room at the Assembly Hall. "

The two girls looked at each other wisely. The subject really needed noargument or discussion. Kit said briefly:

"I'll try. I think I can get some of them anyway if I approach UncleCassius as a humble student seeking knowledge. "

All unprepared for the onslaught, the Dean sat enjoying his after dinnersmoke that evening when Kit tapped at the door. 

"Come in, " he called, a little bit testily, looking over his eye-glassesat the intruder. "I don't think I can talk with you just now, my dear, " hesaid. "I am very busy working out a dynasty problem. "

"Oh, but I'd love to help, " Kit pleaded, "and I did help before on theaborigines of Japan, didn't I? I even remember their names, the Ainos. "

"This is early Egyptian. Something you know nothing whatever about. "

"Just mummies?" inquired Kit. "Oh, Uncle Cassius, we girls back home madeup a lovely little couplet about that when we were studying Egypt at highschool. 

 "'Heaven bless the royal mommies, And the jewels in their tummies. '"

No answering gleam of amusement showed in the Dean's eyes. In fact, beregarded her, Kit thought, rather severely for this unseemly display oflevity. 

"Of course, " she added, hastily, "that was when I was very much youngerthan I am now. It was two years ago. "

The Dean coughed deprecatingly, and turned back to the pamphlets beforehim. 

"Remains have been discovered, " he began in quite the tone he used inAssembly, "of the lost tribe of the Nemi. When the Greeks, my dear, obtained a foothold in Carthage and along the Mediterranean coast, theNemi remained unconquered and retreated to the mountain fastnesses, westof the source of the Nile. "

"Well, I know all about that, " Kit answered, encouragingly, perchingherself on the arm of a chair, across from him. "Just see, " and shecounted off on her fingers, "Livingstone-Stanley, --VictoriaFalls--Zambesi--and Kipling wrote all about the people in 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy. '"

"No, no, no, not a bit like it!" the Dean exclaimed. "My dear child, learnto think in centuries and epochs. The long and short of it is, there havebeen some very wonderful remains of the Nemi recently discovered, and Ihave been honored by a commission from the Institute to write a completesummary of the results of the expedition and its historic significance. "

"Don't you wish you'd been there when they dug them up? That's what I'dlove, the exploring part, don't you know. I should think it would befearfully dry trying to make bones sit up and talk, when you are so faraway from it all. "

"They are not sending me bones, " replied the Dean with dignity, "but theyare sending me the Amenotaph urn, and a sitting image of Annui. I believewith these two I shall be able to establish as a fact the survival of theGreek influence in ancient Egypt. My dear, you have no idea, " he added, warmly, "how much this explains if it is true. There may be even somePhoenician data before I finish investigating. "

"Phoenicians, " thought Kit, although she said nothing. "Yes, I do rememberabout them, too. Tin, --ancient Britain--and something about Carthage, orwas that Queen Dido?" Then she said aloud very positively and earnestly:

"I know I can help you a lot with this, Uncle Cassius, if you will onlylet me, because history is my favorite study, and the reason I came tospeak to you to-night is this: We girls are going to have a Founders' Tea, Saturday afternoon, up at Hope; just a little informal affair, but I'dlike to give it a----" She hesitated for the right word, and the Deannodded encouragingly, being in a better mood. 

"Semblance of verity? Are you preparing a treatise?"

"No. I want something they can look at, " Kit explained, "and I knew if Itold you about it, you'd let us take a few of the old things out of thatcabinet in your room at Assembly Hall. All I need would be--well, say afew portraits of any of the founders of Hope, and any of the relics of theIndians or French explorers. "

The Dean graciously detached a key from the ring at one end of the slenderchain which barred his waistcoat. 

Kit retired with it, as though she bore a trophy, and the next day thelast preparations were completed for impressing on the freshman class thehonor of having a Founder's granddaughter in their midst. 

CHAPTER XIV

IN HONOR OF MARCELLE

"I think you ought to preside, Kit, " Charity said as she arranged the teatable more handily before the corner couch. "It's your party, and youought to pour. "

"Takes too much concentration, " Kit returned. "Anne'll help you. I want tohave my mind perfectly clear to manage the thing. You see, Marcelledoesn't know a blessed thing about it yet, and there's no knowing howshe'll take it. Wouldn't it be funny if she got proud and haughty, andmarched away from our Founders' Tea?"

"I don't think you ought to spring it until after we've had refreshments. Food has such a mellowing effect on human nature. It's all a question oftact, though. If I were you, I'd talk to them in an intimate sort of wayinstead of lingering too much on the historic value. Better straightenMalcolm, over yonder; he looks kind of topply. "

Kit regarded the framed steel engraving of Malcolm Douglas almost fondly. It had been taken from a history of early Wisconsin, together with someother founders fortunate enough to be included on the roll of honor, andhad hung down in the Dean's room. Now it occupied a prominent spotspecially cleared for it in the middle of the wall, and Kit had twined along, double tendril of southern smilax around it, culled from the localflorist's supply for any chance Delphi festivities. 

Backed by Miss Daphne's approval and interest, Kit had called at severalhomes where lived the descendants of other founders, and the results weremanifest. Mrs. Peter Bradbury had contributed two Indian blankets and ahunting-bag, besides an old pair of saddle bags used by her father, one ofthe early missionary bishops of the northwest, in his travels through thewilderness. Two fine timber wolf pelts lay on the floor, and of these Kitwas specially proud. She had beguiled them from the treasure store of oldMadame Giron, whose husband could still tell with fiery eyes and thrillingtone of how he had killed the animals not a quarter of a mile from thesite of Hope College, in the old settler days. 

From the cabinet in the Dean's room had come mostly records, old documentscarefully framed, and several letters written by the founders themselves. 

"You know, " Kit said, as she gave a last touch to her exhibit, "of coursethese are important, but I like the Indian and hunting things best. I wishI could run away with that double pair of buffalo horns that belonged toDr. Gleason's granduncle or somebody. I like them better than anything. "

A quick rap came on the door, and before Charity could even call "come in"Peggy entered with her usual galaxy behind her, Amy, Norma, and a newcomerfrom Iowa, Henrietta Jinks, whom the girls had instantly dubbed "theJinx, " because of her infallible habit of everlastingly doing theinopportune thing. 

"If it wasn't that her father was a congressman, she'd never get by withit, " Amy had said, "but as it is, if you'll just remember that she's beenreared on rhetoric and torch-light parades, you can understand that littleabrupt way she has. I think it's rather interesting to be a 'Jinx, ' it'sso different, and the boys only have mascots. This way, it shows we have afine, proud disregard for the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. Kit, my child, did you hear that? I'll be playing Ophelia before the NewYear dawns. "

"Tony Conyers sent word she'd be ready in five minutes, " said Norma. "Ithink she's dressing up as something symbolical, and she's got a lot ofthe girls in there with her. Charity, I think this is a perfectlystupendous idea of yours. "

"'Tisn't mine, " retorted Charity, hurtling cushions handily from one couchto another in order to balance the room. "It's Kit's. This is her party. Her coming out party at Hope. "

"Oh, are you the founder's granddaughter?" Amy inquired, her blue eyesopening widely. 

"No, precious, I'm not, " replied Kit, happily. "I wish this minute I couldmount yon rostrum, Mid declaim the feats of my ancestors. They werepathfinders and Cavaliers, but I don't know of a single blessed founderamong them. Peggy, don't sit on the almonds. They're right behind you inthat glass dish. "

The room filled up rapidly with members of the freshman class, and Kitdeclared after she had been the rounds four times that she felt exactlylike the lecturer in the curio hall in a museum, telling the history ofthe relics over and over again. Nobody but Anne knew how anxious shebecame as the moments slipped by and no Marcelle appeared. It would neverdo to have a climax happen without the surprise of her presence to carryit off. The refreshments had all been served, and the little bronze dragonclock on top of the book shelves showed the hour of five, when Charitycalled:

"You'd better start in on your Founders' talk, Kit; we've only got abouthalf an hour. "

There was a baffled look in Kit's eyes, as she picked up the challenge androse from the brown willow chair. Charity must know perfectly well howuntimely it was to start to spring the surprise while there was a runningchance of Marcelle appearing. Still there was a hush, and the girls facedher expectantly. 

"As you all know, " began Kit, "the old bronze tablet in the lower hallcarries names on its roll of honor which not only uphold the glory of HopeCollege, but also of the entire town of Delphi, of the entire state, I maysay, of Wisconsin. "

"Kit, " murmured Peggy, sotto voce, "if you start declaiming like thatyou'll have 'the Jinx' after your scalp. First thing we know, you'llbegin, 'Ladies and fellow constituents. '"

Kit waited until the laugh had subsided, and Peggy had replaced the shellpins from her tumbled braids after a tussle with "the Jinx, " who took allpolitical allusions as personal affronts. 

"There are few of us here to-day, if any, " continued Kit, slowly, one eyewatching the concrete walk across the campus from the nearest window, "whocan boast of a Hope founder in her family. "

"I can, almost, " interrupted Antoinette, otherwise Tony; "my big sisterMarie was engaged for a very little while to Bernard Giron. If she hadonly married him, we would have had a 'Founder' in the family. "

"Tony, " said Kit, severely, "I am dealing with facts, not prospects, andyou ought not to reveal any family secrets, either. I say it is a greathonor to be a direct descendant of a 'Founder, ' and we have one in ourclass. A girl, too modest to take advantage of her grandfather's record. "She paused impressively, but with a quickening gleam in her eyes, as theresuddenly have in view a hurrying figure in gray sweater and dark crimsoncap on the campus walk. It was Marcelle herself, late, but in time tocreate the desired sensation. 

Kit drew a deep breath, and plunged back to her subject, consideringexactly the time it would take for the belated guest to reach the study. 

"Since all the girls here belong to this dormitory, it seems appropriatethat the founder whose memory we honor should be Malcolm Douglas. Hisportrait hangs upon the wall, evidently taken from an old likeness. " Oh, how she wished the home folks could hear her roll her phrases! "There isno more adventurous or thrilling career in the annals of historic Delphithan that of the illustrious Scotchman. Making his way through the perilsof the wilderness, he came from Quebec with a party of fur traders andpioneer explorers. "

"Don't hit too far back, Kit, " interrupted Peggy, alertly. "If he was afounder in '71, you can't have him trotting over wilderness trails withMarquette and Lasalle, you know. "

"Nevertheless, " responded Kit, ignoring the levity of her nearestneighbor, "he is one of the heroes of our Wisconsin pioneer times. Hecame here in his early twenties, and married Lucia, the daughter ofCaptain Peter Morton. Their daughter was Mary, and, girls, she was themother of one of our classmates, the very same Mary who went through Hopeand graduated with high honors. You'll find her initials carved in Number10 across the hall, and her portrait--the only one I could find--is inthis graduating group. "

The girls all crowded forward to look at the group photograph which Kitheld out to them, just as a knock came at the door. For one dramaticinstant Kit held the knob, her back against the door as she announced inalmost a whisper:

"The granddaughter of Malcolm Douglas. "

The girls leaned forward, eagerly, every eye fixed upon the door. As Kitsaid afterwards, laughingly to Anne:

"Goodness knows who they expected to see, but I almost felt as though Ihad promised them the excitement of a live mummy and then had sprungMarcelle. Oh, but wasn't she splendid, Anne? The way she stood theintroduction and the shock of finding herself the guest of honor. As Ilooked at her, I thought to myself, you may be Douglas, and you may beMorton, fine old Scotch and English stock, but if it wasn't for the dashof debonair Beaubien in you too, you could never carry this off the wayyou are doing. "

Marcelle was not the only person present who had to fall back on inherentcaste for their manners of the moment, but Tony was the only one that gavean audible gasp. Even Peggy and Norma smiled, and greeted the Founder'sgranddaughter in the proper spirit. 

She was dressed in white, just a plain kilted skirt and smock, but Kitgloried in the way she took her place beside Charity at the tea table, andparried the questions of the girls with laughing ease. 

"Of course, " she said, with the little slight accent she seemed to havecaught from her father and old Grandmother Beaubien, "I thought every onein Delphi knew. For myself, I am proud of him, and of all my mother'speople, but I am also proud of being a Beaubien. You girls do not knowperhaps that some of my father's people helped to found Fort Dearborn, andthey were very brave and courageous voyagers in the early days of NewFrance. "

Peggy really rose to the occasion remarkably, Kit thought. Probably themost zealously guarded membership in Hope's freshman class was that of thePortia Club, and yet, before the tea was over, she had invited Marcelle toattend the next meeting and be proposed for membership. 

"We're not going to try a whole play at first, just famous scenes, and Iknow you'd fit in somewhere and enjoy it. Don't you want to, Marcelle?"

Marcelle shrugged her shoulders, deprecatingly. 

"I shall be glad to help always, " she said, with simple dignity, "if youwish to make me one of you. We have an old copy of Shakespeare at homethat was my mother's, and I have read much of it in the long winterevenings. I think, " she added, whimsically, "that I would rather playparts like Shylock or Hamlet than the girl rôles, and best of all, Ishould love dearly to play Prince Hal. "

"What do you think of that?" Anne said on the way home. "The idea of herbeing interested in Shakespeare at all or knowing anything about it, afterliving all her life in that little sand dump. Kit, you certainly havediscovered a flower that was born to blush unseen. "

"It will take her out of her shell, anyway, " Kit replied, happily. "And Ido think the girls came up to the mark splendidly. Heaven knows how theyare talking about us now, behind our backs, but they acted their partsnobly when I swung that door open, and there stood, just Marcelle!"

CHAPTER XV

THE FAMILY ADVISES

No qualms of homesickness visited Kit the first two months after schoolopened. Not even New England could eclipse the glory of autumn when itswept in full splendor over this corner of the Lake States. Down eastthere was a sort of middle-aged relaxation to this season of the year. Kitalways said it reminded her of the state of mind Cousin Roxy had reached, where one stood on the Delectable Mountains and could look both ways. 

But here autumn came as a veritable gypsy. The stretches of forest thatfringed the ravines rioted in color. The lakes seemed to take on the verydeepest sapphire blue. No hush lay over the land as it did in the east, but there were wild sudden storm flurries, and as Kit expressed it, afeeling in the air as if there might be a regular circus of a cataclysmany minute. 

Hardly a Saturday passed but what she was included in some motoring party. The Dean never joined these, but Miss Daphne thoroughly enjoyed her newrôle of chaperon. Sometimes the run would be further north, along theroute to Milwaukee. Other days they would dip into the beautiful woodedroads that cut through the ravines, leading over towards Lake Delevan. Andonce, towards the end of November, in the very last spurt of Indian Summerweather, they took a week-end tour up to Eau Claire and Chippewa Falls. 

"I only wish, " Rex said, "that we could come up here next spring when theyhave their big logging time. It's one of the greatest sights you ever saw, Kit. I have seen the logs jammed out there in the river until they lookedlike a giant's game of jackstraws. Maybe we could arrange a trip, don'tyou think so, mother?"

"I don't see any reason why not, " replied Mrs. Bellamy. 

"But I won't be here then, " protested Kit. 

"Oh, you'll stay till the end of the spring term, dear, " Miss Daphnecorrected, and right there and then Kit experienced her first pang ofhomesickness. Would she really be away from the home nest until next June?Even with this novelty of recreation, backed by wealth, she felt suddenlyas though she could have slipped away from it all without a single regret, just to find herself safely back home with the family. 

When her next letter arrived at Maple Lawn, Jean read it over her mother'sshoulder. The two younger girls were at school, and a little puzzled frowndrew Jean's straight dark brows together. 

"She's getting homesick, mother. Kit never writes tenderly like thatunless she feels a heart throb. I never thought she'd last as long as shehas----"

But Mrs. Bobbins looked dubious. 

"She seems to have made such a good impression. I hate to have her spoilit by jumping back too soon. It's such a benefit for her. "

Jean stopped polishing lamp chimneys and gazed out of the kitchen windowtowards the far-reaching fields, where none but the crows could find aliving now. She was only able to run up from New York once a month, sinceshe had taken a position of junior instructor at the Academy, and yet eachtime she found herself turning with a sigh of relief and safety from thecity life to the peace of these everlasting hills. 

"I don't blame her a bit if she wants to come back home before summer, mother dear. Money isn't everything. "

"Oh, but Jean, " sighed the Mother Bird, "it means so much in life. It'sfoolish to blind ourselves to all that it will do for us. I never try todeceive myself one bit, and I shall always miss the little luxuries andgreater comforts of life that we had back at the Cove, before yourfather's health broke down, especially now that you girls are growing upso soon into womanhood. It isn't for myself I want it, but for you. "

Jean laughed as she slipped her arms closer around her mother's neck. 

"But you mustn't apprentice Kit to the Sign of the Dollar, just for theforlorn hope that Uncle Cassius and Aunt Daphne may send her home with ashower of gold. It seems to me if they were really and truly the rightkind of family people, and cared for you and father, that they couldn'trest until they had handed over a splendid, generous slice of their moneyright now when it would do the most good. "

"Oh, Jean, people never do that. But I do think they will leave somethingto you all. "

"Leave something!" sniffed Jean, scornfully. "If there's anything in theworld I thoroughly despise, it's old, mouldy, dead men's shoes. If I wereyou, I'd write and tell Kit that she could come home at the Christmasvacation if she wanted to. "

But Cousin Roxy took an entirely different view of the matter when she wasconsulted. 

"Fiddlesticks, " she said. "No girl of Kit's age knows what she wants twominutes of the time. She's doing good missionary work out there, and shemust not become weary in well doing or draw back her hand from the plow. You don't need her here at all, Elizabeth. Helen's getting plenty oldenough to take hold and help. "

"Oh, but she's so young, Roxy, to have responsibility thrust upon her. "

"Can't have it too young, " retorted Mrs. Ellis, buoyantly. "It's whattones up the muscles of the spirit. From what I know about Cassius CatoPeabody, I should say that what he needed most was a trumpet call from theLord to make him take an interest in the land of the living instead ofmummies and buried cities. "

So two letters went back to Kit, and in hers the Mother Bird could notresist slipping a hint that perhaps it would be a wise thing to ask theDean about terminating her visit at Christmas time. But Jean added inhers:

"Mother's afraid you are homesick, or that they may be tired of you bythis time, but if I were in your place, Kit, I'd try to stay until June. Father thinks the Hall may be done in time for us to go into it nextmonth, but we've had lots of wet weather, and Cousin Roxy says it wouldbe horribly unhealthful to move in before the plaster has had a chance tothoroughly dry. Shad goes down every day with father, and they've kept thefire going in the furnace, so I suppose that will help some, but thereisn't a particle of need for your coming back, except mother's dread thatyou may be homesick, and you're getting too old to mollycoddle yourself, Kit, where there's a big interest at stake. "

Kit read this with lowering brow. 

"It's so nice to have been born Jean, and speak on any subject as theeldest sister, " she said, scornfully. "I know perfectly well that motherneeds me when she is moving back into the new house, and I never expectedto stay so long when I came, anyway. "

She stopped short, meditating on just what this queer, choky feeling wasthat had swept over her. Helen and Jean always liked to take a new emotionand analyze it, but Kit rarely concerned herself with motives or causes. And now she only knew that she would have given up everything, futurehopes of the Dean's bestowing bequests broadcast in the robins' nest, andall the winter's fun at Hope College, just to be safely back home with allthe dear familiar faces around her. 

CHAPTER XVI

SHOPPING FOR SHAKESPEARE

It was Saturday morning. She had been elected a member of the Portia Club, and even now rehearsals were under way for the first performance thesecond week in December. There was to be one that morning at Amy's study, the scene between Rosalind, Orlando, and Celia. Kit was Orlando on accountof her height and carriage. As Amy said:

"You've got the air, Kit, that goes with doublet and hose and Lincolngreen. "

"Lincoln green was in Robin Hood's time, " retorted Kit. 

"Yes, but it's all that foresty stuff, don't you know. You can playMercutio next month in the 'Merchant of Venice. '"

"No, I want to be Shylock. I love character parts. I don't see why youhave to pick out these little tame scenes when we could have Lear andEdgar and the Fool on the heath, or Dick the Third or Macbeth. I'd playany of those for you. We used to have plays back home just amongst usgirls, and I was always the leading heavy. We even tried putting on'Faust' in the barn when the hay-lofts were empty, but that does needatmosphere. "

"Dear wayward, fearless sister, " answered Amy, kindly, "what you haven'tfound out here is this. Thus far we can go and no farther. The facultywould expire seeing you as King Lear. Discreetly may ye pose as Orlando, or any other gentle lad, with a sweeping cloak about thee, but I doubt ifthe Dean would even beam on Hamlet. "

"I'm a splendid Hamlet, " Kit said, thoughtfully. "I doubled in 'Hamlet'and 'The Raven' in the same costume down home. Just the soliloquy, ofcourse, though we'd have tried the grave-diggers scene only we didn't haveany skulls. "

But Amy had not thought favorably of deviating from the usual program. Scenes from "As You Like It, " as usual, was to be the first effort. Kitglanced at the clock, and caught up her sweater and cap. It was quarter often, and she was due at Amy's at ten. As she ran down-stairs, sheencountered the Dean, happily directing two expressmen carry a large boxback into the study. 

"My dear, it has come, " he told her. "I'm hoping they will both be here, the Amenotaph urn and the statue of Annui. I do not wish to be disturbedjust now while I am unpacking them, as it takes a great deal of care anddelicacy and you will ask too many questions, Kit, but if you will come inafter lunch, I will explain the inscriptions to you. "

"Oh, I'd love to, Uncle Cassius, " Kit answered, eyeing the box hopefully. "I'm going up to a rehearsal at the Hall. "

The Dean smiled absently and nodded his head at her. 

"Look up Annui while you are there, also Semele. "

Lysander, the puppy, bounded to meet her as she hurried down the walk, andat the sidewalk curb she found the Bellamy car waiting. 

"Just in time, " called Rex, cheerily. "Where are you bound for?"

Kit took the seat beside him gratefully. The wind from the lake blewcuttingly, and there was a flurry of first snowflakes in the air waveringabout uncertainly like birds that had lost their way. 

"Where's Anne?" she asked. "Isn't she going up to rehearsal?"

"Gone down to Brent's first. I'm going to stop and pick her up. She's beenbuilding a costume all the morning. "

The car swung around the corner of Maple Avenue and down the hill towardsthe village, leaving Lysander sitting at the corner, wailing dolefully. 

Brent's was the local emporium for everything needed, from the collegestandpoint. Not only were its shelves filled with goods which varied fromlibrary supplies to latest fiction, but there was an ice cream parlorannex patronized almost entirely by students. 

Anne was engrossed over a selection of patterns at the counter in the backof the store. She was to play Celia, and Norma was Rosalind. Charityalways said that Norma's profile and long corn-colored hair brought hermore undeserved honors than any qualities of excellence she possessed. 

"I'm so glad you came along just now, " sighed Anne. "Mother says I oughtto dress very simply, but a Duke's daughter would have even a stuff dresscut in fashion, wouldn't she? Besides, I can show a lot of taste in mycap. Norma's got a perfectly wonderful cloak made of a dark green feltpiano cover. "

Kit helped her select a dull violet goods, with white underslip thatshowed through the slashes in the sleeves. Anne had been hovering over anold rose that absolutely killed any glint of color in her light brownhair. 

"Never, never, " warned Kit, "let old rose come near you, if you've gotfreckles or sandy hair. Don't you notice, Anne, how I cling to all thesoft pastel nondescript tones? That's because my eldest sister is anartist, and we all have to live up to it more or less now. When Jean wantsa new dress she slips away and communes with nature, until she's hit theright tone values. You should have seen her face one day when some oneasked Doris her favorite color, and she said, 'plaid. '"

"We're going to be late to rehearsal, " Anne declared with a sigh, as theyrose to leave. 

"We are late now, " rejoined Kit, cheerfully. "They'll prize us all themore if we keep ourselves kind of scarce. Rex told me to order walnutsundae for him, and wait until he comes back. "

Just at this moment Anne laid her finger on her lips and glancedimpressively at a table on the other side of the room. There sat Amy withPeggy Porter and Norma, all of them dreamily imbibing ice cream sodas, just as though Shakespearian rehearsals were occasions unknown in theirengagement calendars. 

Kit rose and crossed the room with caution until she stood behind Amy andintoned sepulchrally from Macbeth:

 "What ho! Ye secret, black and midnight hags, what is't ye do?"

CHAPTER XVII

HOPE'S PRIMROSE PATH

"Well, we waited fifteen minutes for you, " protested Amy, laughingly, "andNorma had to come down-town to try and find some high boots like JuliaMarlowe wore for Rosalind. She's had that old picture of her pinned up onthe wall for two weeks. "

"Oh, and listen, Kit, " Norma broke in; "you know that suede brown leathertable cover of mine; I just took and slashed it around the edges and bentit over an old tam-o'-shanter crown and it looks exactly like the hat shewore. You know I've been considering rather seriously. Don't you reallythink that I'm peculiarly fitted for this sort of a career? Of course I'donly play Shakespearian parts, although I'd love to be Joan of Arc likeMaude Adams was at Harvard, or play the old Greek tragedies at thatStadium place, somewhere in California. I've been studying Electra alittle bit. "

"Have you?" questioned Kit, kindly. "You dear child, you. So young and yetso aspiring. Finish your chocolate ice cream soda, and we'll run along. Rex just came with his car and we can all pile into it. "

The rehearsal passed off splendidly, barring sundry interpolations by Kitinto Orlando's flights of fancy. 

"I think he would have had to have been much more interesting to have heldthe love of such a girl as Rosalind, " she protested. "Heroes are awfulpeople anyway, I think. The only ones I really like are explorers. UncleCassius said the other day that the most unique experience was to be thefirst white man to step foot on new territory. I may take up forestry as aprofession, but I'd much rather be a woman explorer. "

"Deserts, islands or mountain peaks?" queried Amy, as she dipped into herstore of supplies under the couch for some hasty refreshments. 

"Caves, I think, " said Kit, darkly; "caves or islands. Don't give meanything to eat, 'cause I have to look up something in the library beforeI go home, and I'm late for lunch now. "

"Just pimento cheese on crackers, and I've got some chocolate marshmallowshere somewhere. " Amy's voice was muffled under the couch cover. But theclock on the mantel pointed at twelve-fifteen, and Kit knew the Dean'spunctilious regard for keeping meal hours. 

The library was unoccupied, apparently. Kit went over to the lower bookshelves which contained the reference books on archæology, dragging a lowstool after her. 

"A-men-o-taph, " she said, under her breath. "Likewise Semele. "

With the two volumes on her knees, she started to read up the referenceswhich the Dean wanted, when all at once she was conscious of some one whostood in the embrasured window at the west end of the room, looking ather. For a moment Kit was absolutely speechless, not believing theevidence of her own eyes. But the next moment Billie's own laugh, when hefound out he had been discovered, startled her with its reality. 

"Billie Ellis, " she exclaimed, springing to her feet and scatteringreference books and note paper helter-skelter. "How on earth did you everget way out here?"

Billie shook hands with her, coloring boyishly, as he always did at anydisplay of emotion, and trying to act as if it were the most natural andordinary thing in the world for him to appear at Delphi, Wis. , when he wassupposed to be at Washington in school. 

"We got our test exams last week, and Stanley had to run out to Minnesotafor the government, so he took me along to help him. "

"Billie, are you really after bugs and things--I mean, are you going toreally be a naturalist?"

"I guess you'd kind of call it being a business naturalist, " laughedBillie. "I don't think I'll ever live in a shack on a mountainside, andwrite beautiful things about them, now that I know Stanley. You want toroll up your sleeves and go to work like he does. "

"Is he here, now?" asked Kit, eagerly. 

"Yep. " Billie nodded oat of the window, towards Kemp Hall, the boys'dormitory. "After we found out that you didn't live here, we were going ondown to the Dean's to find you, but he looked over the boys' freshmanclass, and found he had a cousin or nephew or somebody on the list, Clayton Diggs. "

"I know him, " Kit exclaimed. "He's High Jinks' cousin. Regular bean pole, with freckles, but mighty nice. I've got to be back for lunch, and you'recoming down with me, of course. How long can you stay?"

"Just this afternoon. We're going back on the five forty-five, and catchthe night express east. If you wait here, I'll chase after Stanley, 'causehe'll want to have lunch with the Diggs boy, and he can join us later. "

Kit walked along the macadamized path which crossed the campus. It wasbordered by dwarf evergreen, but the students had named it Hope's primrosepath, owing to the temptation to dally along it, whenever one had thechance. 

The coming of Billie unexpectedly, just at a time when she was feeling herfirst homesickness, struck Kit as being a special little gift handed outto her by Providence. But with only five hours to visit with him, she knewit would be all the harder after he had gone. He joined her on a run asshe reached the sidewalk, and they hurried down to the Dean's just in timefor luncheon. Kit's face was fairly radiant as she presented her old-timechum of the hills to Miss Daphne and the Dean. 

"Don't you remember, Uncle Cassius, " she asked eagerly, "how, when I firstcame, I told you all about the boy back home who would have just suitedyou? Well, that was Billie. "

The Dean's gray eyes wrinkled as he surveyed Billie over the tops of hiseye-glasses. 

"You come highly recommended, young man, " he said. "Kit almost persuadedme that if she didn't suit I might be able to coax you away from yourgrandfather. "

"I'll bet you wouldn't change now, " Billie responded, gallantly. "Kitknows a hundred per cent, more than I do, sir. I used to hate historyuntil she took to telling me stories about it, and making it interesting. All I really care about is natural history, especially insects and birds. "

"Well, you could have a lovely time studying over uncle's Egyptianscarabs, " said Kit, placidly. "Weren't you telling me something about aplace in China where they had a whole grove filled with sacred silkworms, Aunt Daphne?"

Miss Peabody smiled and nodded, looking from one young face to the other. Never before had youth sat lunching at that table with her and her brotherin quite such a radiant guise. The Dean usually took his noontide meal inabsolute silence when they were alone together, as he held that desultoryconversation disturbed his train of thought. But since Kit's coming, ithad been impossible to check her flow of talk, until now the Dean actuallymissed it if she happened to be absent. 

CHAPTER XVIII

STANLEY APOLOGIZES

After lunch they all went into the library to look over the Dean's newlyarrived treasures. 

"Well, for pity's sakes, " exclaimed Kit, as she stood before the plain, squat, terra-cotta urn, "is that the royal urn? I expected to seesomething enormous, like everything else that is wonderful and ancient inEgypt. "

"Dear child, " the Dean responded, happily, as he bent down to trace thecurious, cuneiform markings which circled the urn. "This antedates thetime of the Captivity and Moses. I cannot tell positively, until I haveopened it and deciphered what I can of the papyrus rolls within. If itshould go back to Moses, it will be wonderful. I cannot believe that it iscontemporary with Nineveh. Daphne, you can recall how overjoyed I waswhen we unearthed that library of precious clay under the Nineveh moundsyears ago. Think of reading something which was written by living manseveral thousand years before that. "

"What fun it must have been, " Billie remarked. "If you wanted to writeanything in those days, you just picked up a handful of mud and made alittle brick out of it, and wrote away with a stick, didn't you?"

"Stylus, my boy, stylus, " corrected the Dean, absently. "Yes, I doubt notbut what it did away with much of our modern detail. "

"Oh, " exclaimed Kit, suddenly, "I left all the notes on Semele in thelibrary. I'm awfully sorry, Uncle Cassius, but when I saw Billy standingthere unexpectedly, I just forgot everything. We can walk up there thisafternoon and get them. Is the statue very beautiful?"

"Perfect, perfect, " murmured the Dean, as he still hung over the urnabstractedly. "It's just behind you, my dear. "

Kit turned, expecting to face one of the usual blandly smiling Egyptiancolossi, even in miniature, with a few wings scattered over it here andthere. But instead, there stood in the center of the Dean's library tablea strangely attenuated figure about three feet high. As Billie saidafterwards, it appeared to be dancing the Grasshopper's NocturnalRhapsody. It had a head that was a cross between an intelligent antelopeand a rather toploftical baby rat. Its arms were extended at sharp angles, and seemed to be pointing in arch accusation at one. Wings spread fanwisefrom the shoulders, and its feet were like the feet of a griffin. 

"I never thought it would look just like that, did you, Billie?" Kit askedconfidentially, when they started back to the campus, after the notes onSemele. 

"Well, I knew well what to expect, because we've been doing theSmithsonian Institute pretty well, " responded Billie, rather knowingly. "Some of them look worse than that. But they can't beat our own littleAlaskan and Mexican beauties. I wonder what people were thinking aboutback in those days to worship that sort of thing?"

But Kit caught sight of five of the girls just rounding the corner after ahike along the shore, and she hailed them, much to Billie's inwarddisgust. While he approved thoroughly of Kit, he viewed the average girlfrom a safe altitude indifference. But Kit introduced him in an off-hand, casual manner which put him at his ease, and when they started up theprimrose path, it was the "Jinx" herself who had taken possession ofBillie, and was interesting him thoroughly, telling of her father's bigstock farm outside of Maquoketa. 

They found Stanley Howard awaiting them on one of the big tree seats, outside the Hall. Clayton was with him, strumming on a ukulele, as theytalked, happily and lazily. The girls followed Kit into the library, asshe went on a hunt after Semele, and here Amy faced her accusingly. 

"You never told us a word about this Billie boy, " she declared, "and eversince you came here, you've made believe to overlook boys. You haven'twanted them in any of our affairs. You made fun of the girls who did wantthem, and all the time you've had this one up your sleeve. Kathleen, explain. "

"If he's a relative, " Peggy interposed, serenely, "we'll let you off. You've never been initiated into anything. You haven't even had yourfreshman hazing, because the Dean doesn't approve of such doings, and wefelt that we'd better keep it out of the family, but there are limits, aren't there, girls?"

Kit laughed up at them, as she groped about on the floor picking up thescattered pages of notes. 

"Well, he's a relative, if you must know, " she retorted. "He's my father'sfirst cousin's husband's grandchild. Now haze me if you like. "

Vowing that this connection was altogether too nebulous to save her fromthe threatened penalty, the girls buried the hatchet for the time being inthe entertainment of the guests. 

"I suppose Hope looks pretty small to you after the universities backeast, " Norma said to Billie, as they made the rounds of the buildings, after Amy had played hostess with Kit's help, and had brought down agoodly supply of fudge and peanut nougat. 

"Looks mighty good, " returned Billie, heartily. "I think you can haveloads more fun in a place like this than you can at the big schools. Andyou know, I'm not going to a university or anything of that sort. I'm justat the 'Prep' and taking up special branches outside with Mr. Howard. "

"What kind of branches?" queried Norma. 

"Oh, science, and physics, but specially entomology and forestry. He's ingovernment service, you know. "

"He doesn't act a bit important or dignified, does he?" Norma saidthoughtfully. "You'd almost think he was a sort of grown-up boy. "

"I wish I knew all he does. It's mighty nice for a fellow to have a friendlike Stanley. It's like being a little bicycle running in the track of aspeeding motorcycle. You may not be able to keep up, but it's mighty goodexercise trying to hit the pace. "

Kit was walking behind the others with Amy and Anne. Now that they hadjoined the others, and the girls were talking about Stanley also, she hadbecome strangely silent. 

"You don't know him very well, do you?" Amy asked, curiously. "I mean, heisn't related to you. "

Kit shook her head with bland indifference. 

"He's a friend of Billie's. I only met him down east when he came to chasethe gypsy moth in Gilead. "

She did not add that with Shad's help and able cooperation, she hadmanaged to curtail the chase of the gypsy moth, temporarily, by holdingthe chaser captive in the family corn-crib, but she inwardly suspectedthat Stanley was remembering it. Every once in a while she accidentallycaught him looking at her, with a look of amused, interested retrospectionthat made her vaguely uncomfortable. 

As they left the campus, Norma, leading with Billie, took the street thatled to the bluffs overlooking the lake, and somehow or other in thesubsequent scramble down the narrow pathways, Kit found Stanley at herelbow. Even Jean could not have been more dignified or distant in hermanner, but Stanley refused to be frozen out. 

"You know, " he said, genially, "I've just found out something, Miss Kit. Iforgave you long ago for locking me up in your corn-crib, and nearlylanding me in the local calaboose, but you don't forgive me one bit fortrespassing in your berry patch. "

Kit's profile tilted ever so slightly heavenward. Jean had loved to quoteto her in the old days that consistency was a jewel, and William of Avonhad said so positively, whereupon Kit would swing always, feeling herselfbacked by Emerson's opinion that "consistency was a hobgoblin of littleminds. " Yet now she felt herself feeling almost righteously consistent. She had thoroughly made up her mind that very day when Mr. Hicks made hismemorable and fruitless journey to Greenacres that not even governmentexperts had any right to climb over fences into people's private propertywithout first asking permission. Perhaps the sudden popularity of thetrespasser with all the other members of the family had something to dowith Kit's stand against him. Even Helen had remarked that she didn't seehow on earth Kit could ever have imagined a person looking like Mr. Howardcould be a berry hooker. 

"I don't want you to forgive me, " she said, calmly. "I've never been onebit sorry for it. I think you ought to have come up to the house and askedpermission to go in there. And you never said that you were sorry. Italways seemed to me as if you rather acted as if you thought it was a goodjoke"--she hesitated a moment, before adding pointedly, --"on me. "

"Suppose I apologize now. " Stanley's tone was absolutely serious, but Kit, with one quick look at the precipitous path, ahead of them, laughed. 

"Not here, please. Wait until we hit the level shore. You do really haveto pay attention on this path, or you miss your footing and toboggan allat once. "

"Then, suppose, " he persisted, "we just consider that I have apologized. And if you accept, you can raise your right hand at me. "

Kit immediately raised her left one, and waggled it provocatively over hershoulder. Before he could say any more, she had hurried ahead and caughtup with the rest. 

CHAPTER XIX

THE COURT OF APPEAL

It was not until after they had gone, when Kit was by herself, that sheremembered all Billie had told her, at the very last of his stay. 

They had walked along the lake shore together, a little behind the others, after the Beaubien family had been visited. 

"You haven't told me anything at all, " Kit said, "about home. When wereyou in Gilead last?"

"Just before we came west, " Billie answered. 

"Was everything all right?" Billie hesitated. "Oh, for heaven's sake, Billie, tell me if there is anything. You can't give me any nervous shocksat all, and I'm dying to find an excuse to get back home. "

"Why, there isn't anything the matter, exactly, " Billie said, cheerfully, but with a certain reservation in his tone, that made Kit long to get himwith a good grip in his curly hair and shake him the way she used to dotwo years ago. "The only thing that I know about, I heard grandfathertelling Uncle Jerry. I don't suppose I ought to repeat it either. "

"Billie, I wish I could shake you right here by the Michigander sea. Howdare you keep back any news of my family from me?"

"It was something about there not being any more dividends until after thewar, on some stock. I guess it hit grandfather, too, but I heard him saythat there wasn't a farm up there that couldn't support itself, properlyrun, and he guessed they'd all weather the storm. "

Kit frowned heavily. 

"Stock, " she repeated with scorn. "The very idea, anyway, of taking realmoney and giving it away for a lot of little certificates. If I had moneyI'd put it in a nice clean, dry, covered tin pail, and hang it down mywell, just like Jerushy said she always did when she had a ten-dollar billaround that worried her. And there Dad's got all the expense ofrebuilding Greenacres. It's going to be a regular White Elephant, I'mafraid, because it isn't all paid for anyway, and there's the yearlyinterest. " She hesitated before she added, slowly, "I wonder why on earthit is, Bill Ellis, that the people with the most children who need themost money always seem to be hunting for it, and these nice, old, placiddarlings, like the Dean and Miss Daphne, have simply got oodles plantedaway somewhere, and never have to think twice over where the next windfallis coming from. "

But Billie was inclined to take an optimistic view of the whole affair. 

"Grandfather said that there was no cause for worry; it was just a case ofpitch in and get your living out of the farms again. "

"Yes, " said Kit, with fine scorn, "get your living out of the farms. That's all very well for him to say, when he's got everything to do with, and twenty of the best cows in Windham County, but we moved up there onhope and a shoe-string. And we've never really raised anything exceptchickens and children. You know, Billie, even with a small income, howyou can play country gentleman to your heart's content in a little placelike Gilead. "

"Stanley says your place, if it was properly worked, would make one of thefinest fruit farms up there, 'cause all your land slopes to the south asfar as the river. He says if he had it he'd sell off the heavy timber forcash and put the money right into hardy varieties of fruit and hogs. "

Kit laughed. 

"Can't you see Helen's face over the hogs, when she has wanted to raisebulbuls and white peacocks, with a few antelopes and gazelles wanderingaround. But I suppose one could keep the hogs out of sight, they wouldn'thave to graze on the front lawn. Did he tell Dad that?"

"I don't know, " Billie said, doubtfully. "You know, Uncle Jerry's kind ofhard to get confidential with over his own affairs, but I wouldn't worry, Kit, if I were you. Things always come out all right. "

"They do not, " returned Kit, calmly. "Even Cousin Roxy says that you haveto give Providence a helping hand now and then. I'm going to think up away to start those hogs rambling over the southern slopes of GreenacreHall. "

Billie smiled at her mischievously. 

"That's the new name, isn't it? You'll be a nice crowd of farmerettes nextsummer, won't you?"

"Maybe it'll happen before next summer, " prophesied Kit, sagely. "Jean andmother like to call it Greenacre Hall, but I like Greenacre Farm, if we'regoing to do any business there. Thanks ever so much for telling me, Billie. You may have changed the course of destiny, because I can tell younow I'm going home. "

After dinner that night Kit was out on the veranda alone for a while withonly Sandy at her feet. There was a light in the study bay window. MissDaphne had gone over to a meeting of the Women's War Chest committee atthe Bellamys'. Kit was wondering whether it would be best to write firstto her mother or to Jean. Jean would be leaving a few days after Christmasfor New York anyway. How she longed to know just exactly what thefamily's plans were for the winter. But the worst of it was, one of theRobbins' failings or virtues as a family was for each member to spare theother members all the worry and bother possible, by carefully concealingany little personal troubles. To Kit this was all wrong. What on earth, she used to argue, was the use of being a family if you didn't all lean oneach other and derive mutual strength and support?

Finally, she decided to write to Cousin Roxy herself. There was alwayssomething satisfactory in making her the court of appeal, on any point ofdoubt; even though her decision might not be a favorable one, you alwaysfelt sure you were getting it straight without any affectionate bias. 

Accordingly, a confidential appeal went speeding east, and back came thereply, by return mail, as Kit had known it would. 

 "DEAR CHILD:--

 "I had been thinking about you when your letter came, so I suppose our mental wireless calls must have crossed. 

 "There's no doubt at all but what your mother needs you badly right here, especially with Jean leaving right after Christmas. What Billie told you was about the truth. Out of the wreck of matter and crush of worlds that happened at Shady Cove, when your father's business and health failed, they did manage to save enough to give them a little income. Then, as you know, it was mostly your mother's money that was paid down on Greenacres in a lump, so that stopped her share coming in. 

 "The fire didn't help matters along one bit, but the Judge took a first mortgage on the property, and the money went into the repairs. 

 "I don't see why you aren't old enough to know these things, 'cause land knows the time is coming soon enough when you will have to put your shoulder to the wheel, like Jean, and help. It seems too bad that some folks I could mention can't see their duty when it's right under their nose. Just as soon as the Lord sees fit to call him home, Cassius Cato Peabody will have to leave some of his money to his nephew, your father, Jerry. Of course, he may take it into his head to endow some sacred seat of learning on the banks of the Nile, where they can study all the stars and cats and cows they want to. For my part, I think if he'd look a little way beyond his nose this minute, and see his duty to the living, he'd be a good deal happier in the long run. 

 "Be careful how you open up the ashes of old Amenotaph. I don't see how he can keep the pesky things around. Makes me think of Eliza Ann Gifford, after the Deacon died. She had his ashes in a little bronze, brown box on the front room mantel, and fresh flowers on 'em every day of her life. Used to give one a fearful turn every time they called on her. So far as I'm concerned, I'm perfectly willing to wait for Gabriel's last trump to let my dust and ashes rest in a decent grave. 

 "If I were you, Kit, I'd have a heart-to-heart talk with the Dean himself, and I know your mother will be just as relieved as can be to hear you're homeward bound. "

CHAPTER XX

HOGS AND HORACE

Kit was delighted over the whole spirit of the letter, and went directlyto the Dean with its message. He was deeply engrossed in getting up hisfirst notes and commentaries on the urn and statue. It had not seemed forthe past two or three weeks as if he resided any longer in Delphi at all. Kit told Miss Daphne she was positive he was wandering through Egypt allthe time, the Egypt of five thousand years ago. And it was only the shadowof his self that seemed to sit closeted for hours in the study. 

He hardly glanced up now as she came in, but smiled and nodded when he sawwho it was, keeping on with his writing. 

"Just hand me that volume on the second shelf to your right by the door. Second volume, 'Explorations in Upper Egypt. ' Look up Seti I in theindex. "

Kit found the place and laid it before him, perching herself on one end ofthe desk, as she always did when she wanted to attract his attention. Thelittle statuette of Annui smiled grotesquely down upon her from itspedestal. The urn stood in a handy place of honor upon the desk itself asthe Dean had been deciphering the inscriptions upon it. 

"I hate to disturb you, Uncle Cassius, " Kit began, with the directness socharacteristic of her, "but I really think I ought to go back home. You'vebeen wonderful to give me such a long visit, and I've enjoyed the schoolwork immensely, but somehow I begin to feel like a soldier who has beenaway on a furlough. It's time for me to get back to the firing line, because mother needs me. "

The Dean glanced up in surprise, and came slowly out of his dream ofconcentration as the meaning of her words dawned upon him. 

"Why, my dear child, " he exclaimed, "this is very sudden. There has neverbeen any question about your going back, at least----" He cougheddeprecatingly. "Not since we became acquainted with you. Has anythinghappened?"

"Why, nothing special--I mean, nothing tragic. It's only this, Dad's losta lot of money all at once. He did have a little income, enough so wenever have had to depend on the farm entirely, but now, even that has beenswept away. I suppose it will come back some time after the war, but as Iunderstand it, the stock he had has stopped paying dividends. "

"Jerry never had any head for business. " The Dean tapped one hand lightlywith his tortoise-shell rimmed spectacles in an absent-minded musing waythat nearly drove Kit frantic. "But what can you do about it, my dear?Surely by returning at such a time you merely add to your father'sburdens. "

"No, I won't, " Kit answered, decidedly, "because I've got a plan that I'vebeen thinking about for ever and ever so long. I'm going to try andpersuade Dad to let us put in hogs. "

"Hogs, " repeated the Dean, in a baffled tone. "Hogs, my dear. Who everheard of raising hogs when they could raise anything else at all? I'm surethat Horace never tried hogs on his farm. "

Now it just happened that Kit had a smattering knowledge of Horace, gleaned from Billie. In the old days back home, when they had studiedtogether, they had seemed to always get the personal side of the oldheroes and people of fame. And just now the only thing she could rememberabout Horace popped up in her mind. 

"Well, I'll bet a cookie there was many a time when he wished he had. Don't you remember how he wrote, "'Give me again my hollow tree, A crust of bread and liberty. '

"We've had our hollow tree, and I'm afraid unless we get right down tobusiness now, we'll have all the crusts of bread and liberty we fancy. Ijust can't stay here in this beautiful place with nothing to worry over, while the family are practically in a lifeboat with breakers ahead. "

If the Dean had known Kit better, he would have realized that in emotionalmoments she was prone to exaggerated similes, but as it was, he feltimpressed. 

"Why, God bless my heart and soul, " he exclaimed, "I had no idea it was asbad as this. I thought Jerry was very comfortably fixed. "

"Oh, we were at the Cove. We had everything we wanted, but father was sickan awfully long while after his breakdown, and he's never been able to doany work since. "

"But how ridiculous for a man to bury himself and all his capital in aplace like Gilead, " the Dean protested, somewhat testily. "He could havedone a great many other things, I should imagine. "

Kit leaned over and looked at him, right in the eye. 

"Uncle Cassius, what would you do if everything was just swept away fromyou, health, money, home and your work; what do you suppose you would do?If there was any spot of earth that was peaceful and restful, and that youloved best, wouldn't you want to go to it? That's what Gilead means, 'theplace of healing. '"

There was silence in the old study. The Dean was looking straight at Annuias if for inspiration, and yet it was not the old image which he saw, buta vision of Gilead as he remembered it in his boyhood, a vision of greenhills spanning the horizon, of fertile valleys and many watercourses. Memories stirred in his mind of Jerry Robbins' mother, his sister. Sometimes Kit reminded him of her, in her buoyant self-reliance andoptimism. 

The bonds of relationship had always been somewhat intangible to him, since he had grown up. He had laid out his own career himself, and hadcarried every ambition to completion and reality. The last twenty yearshad been years of fruition, of honors freely given, years of fulfillment. He had not been, like Judge Ellis, intolerant of other men's failures; hehad simply ignored them, never feeling any responsibility towards theweaker ones who fell in the race. In his way, he prided himself upon agentle, aloof philosophy of life which left him the boundaries of the oldstudy as a horizon of happiness. 

Probably not until that moment had he realized the gradual revolutionaryprocess Kit had been putting him through ever since her arrival. She hadtrained him into having an interest in other people and things, until nowit was impossible for him not to see the picture of Greenacres as she did. 

"How did you find out about this, my dear?" he asked. 

"Well, " Kit replied, honestly, "partly from Billie and partly from thisletter from Cousin Roxy. You know Cousin Roxy, don't you, Uncle Cassius?"

The Dean's eyes twinkled reminiscently as he took the letter. 

"Oh, yes, I remember Roxana well. She used to bully me outrageously. " Heopened the letter and started to read slowly, just as Kit suddenlyremembered Cousin Roxy's remarks on Cassius Cato Peabody. But there wasno turning back now. Straight through to the end he read, and several deepchuckles broke the silence, real chuckles of delight, such as Kit hadnever heard from the Dean. When he had finished, he handed it back to her. 

"Perfectly true, my dear, " he said. "I can quite see why you feel that youare needed. You had better take your midwinter examinations, and prepareto return home about Christmas. In all likelihood your Aunt Daphne and Iwill accompany you. "

CHAPTER XXI

THE CIRCLE OF RA

The next thing was to break the news gently and convincingly to thefamily. Kit figured it out from all sides, and finally decided to walkright up to the horns of the dilemma in a fearless attack. Writing back along, chatty letter to the Mother Bird, she simply tacked on thepostscript:

"Don't be at all surprised to see me arrive with the other Christmaspackages, and have a fire laid in the guest room. "

At first she had thought only the Dean would accompany her, but when MissDaphne heard of the plan, she declared she would not be left out of it. 

"Why, brother, I haven't seen any of the folks down east in years andyears, and it would hearten me up wonderfully to visit them. I think I'dlike to be with Roxy as much as possible, because we were girl friendstogether. "

Whether it was the prospect of going home or the longing to leave a goodrecord behind her, no one could say, not even Kit herself, but she tookher midwinter examinations with full speed up and colors flying, as Billiewould say. 

The girls took her coming departure with many objections, but theyproceeded to give her various send-offs. Charity and Anne decided on aformal tea, up in the former's room, but the solemnity of the occasion wasbanished when Peggy rose to read some farewell poesy, concocted by herselfand the "Jinx. "

 "She hoped to be the hope of Hope Alas, how soon she flew, To bleak New England's rock-ribbed hills, Ere she her Virgil knew. "

 "And we her comrades tried and true, No laurel crowns may weave. The magic circle broken is, For Kathleen fair we grieve. "

After which, Amy led a procession of solemn-visaged, sombre-clad academicmaidens, who approached the divan where Kit sat, and each presented herwith some sage advice, in couplets. Amy explained later that she got theidea from Sargent's "Gifts of the Hours. "

"Although, if it had been summer time, we would have tried to make it morelike Tennyson's 'Princess, ' but I think this carries the idea all right. Norma wrote the couplets, and they almost have a prophetic note. Don't youthink so, Kit?"

Kit agreed that they did, and long afterwards, up in the old cupolacouncil room, she read them aloud to Helen and some of the Gilead girls. One in particular rather hit her fancy, because Kit hated early rising. 

 "Rise, sweet maid, when the cock is crowing, If Fortune's bugles you'd be blowing. "

The Saturday before they left was Kit's day for entertaining. Miss Daphnetook the keenest delight in making it a success. There was a luncheon atone, followed by a whole afternoon of entertaining. Even the Dean emergedfrom his sanctum to mingle a little, and the "Jinx" declared she had neverseen him so human before. He brought out the royal statuette of Annui andeven the sacred memorial urn to show the girls. As Miss Daphne saidafterwards, this showed what a friendly, benign mood he was in. 

Kit was standing on the outskirts of the group around the old grand piano, where he had placed both antiques, when she suddenly saw, through the longFrench windows, Marcelle Beaubien coming up the drive. The Dean was deepin a happy, explanatory speech and she slipped away unnoticed by the rest. 

"It was awfully nice of you to come, Marcelle, " she exclaimed. "I've beenwatching for you ever since lunch. Why didn't you come earlier?"

"But I am early, " smiled Marcelle. "It is only about three o'clock. Generally, I have to stay in all day Saturday, and give the boys a chanceto go out. Will you write to me when you are away?"

"I'd love to. You know it's a queer thing, Marcelle, but really andtruly, out of all the girls I have met here I feel better acquainted withyou than with any of them. "

Kit said this rather slowly, as if it were a sort of self-revelation whichshe had just discovered that minute. And yet it was true. She had enjoyedthe class friendships at Hope immensely, but Marcelle had seemed to standout from the rest of the girls as such a distinctly interestingpersonality. In a way, she was like Billie, because she loved nature andall the romance of adventure. There was in her nature the mingling of thethree races, the French, the Indian, and the Scotch, and besides, Kit feltpersonally responsible for her success up at Hope. The girls had playedabsolutely fair and square, once they had decided to bury the hatchet, andgiven the chance, Marcelle herself had justified the opening of doors toher. As Amy said:

"It doth not behoove us to say a blessed word against Marcelle when she isracing ahead in all our classes, and plucking honors right and left. "

Marcelle smiled at Kit's remark. 

"I have heard my grandmother say that in her girlhood her people of thenorthern forests pledged their friendships by saying, 'While the grassgrows and the waters run, so long shall we be friends. '" She turned andsmiled at Kit her grave-eyed slow smile. "I will say that to you now, before you go. "

Kit laid one arm around her shoulders. 

"Me too, " she answered, heartily. "Sounds like the blood brother vow theyused to take. "

They went up the steps together and into the long double parlors. Thegirls were singing at the piano while Amy played one class song afteranother, and the Dean hung broodingly over the urn. Kit thought she hadnever seen the house so full of life and happiness, and the look on MissDaphne's face was one of positive radiance. 

"You know, " she said, confidentially to Kit, in a low voice, "after wereturn from the east, I have undertaken something that I know will do megood and the Dean, too. I've just been appointed head of the Junior RedCross in Delphi, and the girls will meet here every Saturday. We shallmiss you, Kit, but if it gives you any pleasure, my dear, to know it, Iwant to tell you it was your coming which opened my eyes to the folly ofsitting with empty hands while there was work to be done. I don't think Ican ever belong to what the Dean calls 'the rocking-chair squad' again, without a guilty conscience. "

Kit hugged her fervently. 

"Oh, but you're a dear, Aunt Daphne, to say such things. I only wish Icould stay right here and be in two places at once. I'll tell you whatI've learned here, organization. " Kit said this very firmly and earnestly. "Back home they always said that I knew just what I wanted to do, but Ididn't know how to do it. Well, I know what I want to do now. I want to goback home and organize. "

Miss Daphne laughed and shook her head. 

"Oh, Kit, child, do go easy, " she said. "Organize yourself all you like, but be terribly careful how you start organizing other people's lives. "

The girls had to leave early, as the Shakespearian entertainment was tohappen that night up at Assembly Hall. 

"Your very last chance to mingle, Kit, " Norma called, as they all troopedout of the lower hall. "Don't lose your presence of mind to-night, whenyou find yourself in doublet and hose. "

Kit stood on the veranda steps waving to them until they turned the cornerof Maple Avenue. 

"Oh, dear, " she sighed, "I do wish that friendships lasted longer. I mean, I wish I could have all my friends here down in Gilead. You see, there usgirls are all so scattered around on adjacent hilltops that it's hard toget together regularly. We've only got our hiking club. I think when I goback I'm going to start some more. "

"The Dean wanted to have a little talk with you before dinner, dear. Ithink you'd better go in now, because we want to reach the Hall in goodtime for you to dress, and I'm going to have an early dinner. Don't talktoo long. You know how he is when he gets absorbed in anything. "

Kit promised and joined the Dean. He had carried back the statue of Annuiand stood before it regarding it with perplexity. Kit slipped her armthrough his. It seemed as though there had sprung up a new comradeship andunderstanding between them since their last talk. 

"Won't he tell you his secrets, Uncle Cassius?" she asked. "He has such anaggravating smile, just as if he were amused at baffling you. "

"I am baffled, " the Dean conceded, genially. "I've reached a certain pointand there there is a blank which no historic record seems to fill. Ithought when I had restored the inscription on the urn that it would tellme several of the missing points, but it seems to be merely a sort ofsacred invocation. I am amazed at the urn being hollow. Every othermemorial urn which I found during our excavations in Egypt was sealed, andupon being opened we always found rolls of papyrii within. I amdisappointed. "

Kit went into the back parlor and lifted the urn from the piano verycarefully, carrying it out to its customary place on the Dean's desk. Thenshe stood staring at it, reflectively. It certainly was not exactly athing of beauty, although, as the Dean had pointed out to her, one saw theinfluence of Grecian art in its graceful lines. It always reminded Kit ofIndian pottery down among the Zunis and Mexicans. 

"What does the inscription say?" Kit leaned forward anxiously. 

"It merely traces the origin of King Amenotaph to the god Thoth, " said theDean, thoughtfully; "that is, the Egyptian Hermes, or Mercury, as we knowhim, and it is extremely vague, being a curious mixture of the Coptic andthe ancient Aramaic. "

"But what does it say?" asked Kit again. 

The Dean followed the curious markings on the urn with his finger-tip, bending forward and peering over the rims of his tortoise-shell glasses. 

"It says, 'Amenotaph, born of Thoth, shall reign in wisdom. Kings shallserve at his footstool. Ra shall shine upon him. He shall lie in peace, encompassed by Ra. '"

"Is that all?"

"That is all, " sighed the Dean. "It seems merely a laudatory sentiment. "

"Who was Ra?" asked Kit, curiously, running her hand around the top of theurn. 

"The Sun god. His symbol was the circle. You see it here. "

Kit repeated again, slowly:

"'He shall lie in peace, encompassed by Ra, ' That means surrounded by Ra, doesn't it, Uncle Cassius?" She picked up the um in both hands and shookit close to her ear. 

"My dear child, do be careful, " cried the Dean; "it is priceless. "

But Kit put it under one arm as though it had been a milk pail and tappedaround the inside with her knuckles, listening. 

"That's a perfectly good hollow jug, " she said, solemnly. "Just you tapit, and listen, uncle. I'll bet a cookie they've hidden something insidethe outside and that Ra has guarded it all these years. "

"Just a moment, just a moment, my dear, " exclaimed the Dean, smiling likea happy boy. "You've given me an idea. This may be a cryptogram, or anideographic cypher. Just a moment, now; don't speak to me. "

He sat down at the desk and figured laboriously for nearly twenty minutes, working out the inscription in cypher, while Kit stared at himdelightedly. After all, it was rather gratifying, she thought, to havesomebody in the family who could take a little remark made thousands ofyears ago in old Egypt and make sense out of it to-day. She waitedpatiently until he had finished. His hands were trembling as he reachedfor the urn. 

"The circle, " he repeated, "the circle. 'Ra in his circle shall guardAmenotaph. ' The secret lies in the circle, Kit. Do you suppose it couldmean the rim of the urn?"

Kit knelt beside him, following the inscription on the outside of the urncarefully with her finger-tip, the same as the Dean had done, andstopping when she came to a small circle in black and red outline. 

"Do you suppose Ra lives here, Uncle Cassius?" she asked, poking at itthoughtfully. She peered on the inner side at the corresponding spot tothe circle, and gave a little cry of excitement. There was the faintestsign of a circle here also, like one of the age cracks on Cousin Roxy'santique china. "See, " she cried. "When you push on this side, the othergives a little bit. "

The Dean could not speak. He took the urn from her over to the window andcarefully examined the inner circle through a microscope. 

"Yes, " he said, fervently, "you are perfectly right, my dear. The circlemoves. I think I shall have to take it to Washington on our way east. Iwould not take the responsibility of trying to remove it myself. "

"Oh, dear, it seems awful to have to wait so long, " Kit exclaimed, regretfully. "You know it seemed to me as if you could just press itthrough with your thumb, like this. "

She had not intended pressing so hard, but merely to show him what shemeant, and lo, as Cousin Roxy would have said, under the pressure of Kit'sstrong, young, capable thumb, the circle of Ra depressed and pushed slowlythrough, just exactly as Kit told the girls long afterwards, like when youplug a watermelon. The Dean looked on in utter amazement, as Kit liftedthe urn and tested the inner section by shaking it. Then she peered intothe circular hole, about the size of a quarter. The urn was fully twoinches thick, and by inserting her finger into the space she found that itwas made in two sections, with enough room between for a place ofconcealment. 

"There's something in here like asbestos, Uncle Cassius, " she began, andturning the urn upside down, she tried shaking it, using a little pressureon the circle to separate the two rims. Slowly they gave, while the Deanhovered over her, cautioning and directing the operation, until twocomplete urns lay before them. But it was not these which the Deanliterally snatched at. It was the curious cap-shaped mass which fell outin the form of a cone. To Kit it appeared to be of no significancewhatever, but the Dean handled it as tenderly as a new-born infant, andunder his deft and tender touch it unrolled in long scrolls of papyrus. 

The Dean rose to his feet solemnly, and his voice was hushed, as he said:

"Kit, you do not know what you have done. Some day the significance ofthis occasion will recur to you. All I can say is that you have lifted theveil of the past, and revealed the secret of Amenotaph. "

CHAPTER XXII

HEADED FOR GILEAD

It was very hard for Kit to keep her mind on Orlando that evening, betweenthe excitement of the coming trip and the revelation of the urn. But afterit was over the girls clustered around her for one last send-off, and sherealized then how closely the ties of friendship had been cemented in herfew months at Hope. 

She looked around at them with eyes filled with tears, and Kit was not atall of the crying type, but it seemed as if each girl of her own specialcrowd had filled a particular niche in her life for the time being. Therewas Charity, with her eye-glasses, and placid face, upturned smiling lipsand quizzical eyes. How often she had taken the edge off Kit's rancor andindignation with just a few timely, humorous words. Amy, Norma, Peggy, andHigh Jinks had been the starters in all kinds of fun and recreation, while Anne had seemed to come the nearest to her of them all in actualcomradeship. Then last of all, Marcelle. It was she who clasped Kit'shand, as she repeated in her low voice:

"While the grass grows and the waters run, so long shall we be friends. "

"For pity's sakes, girls, " exclaimed Miss Daphne, "don't act as if youwere never going to see her again. I shall see that she comes back invacation next year, because the Dean and I couldn't possibly do withouther, now. "

Just before it was time to leave for the train Monday morning, Rex andAnne brought over their farewell gift. 

"It's supposed to be like a steamer basket, " Anne said, "only this is atrain basket. We figured on your being on the train for at least two days, if you do happen to stop over in Washington. "

Kit did not open it until they boarded the limited in Chicago and werewell on their way, speeding eastward. There was no sign of snow as yet, but the land seemed to lie locked in a frosty grip of barrenness. The Deanseemed to smile perpetually now. He occupied the lower part of the sectionacross the aisle, and Kit loved to watch him as he sat by the window, hislittle black skullcap making him look like a portrait of an old-timeFrench savant. Every now and then he would glance up and meet her eyeswith a little smile of mutual understanding. It was as if they, too, wereunited in a close bond of sympathy, ever since they had solved the mysteryof Amenotaph and Ra's circle. 

When lunch time drew near Kit opened the train basket. There were fruitand home-made preserves, little tempting jars of sweet pickles and stuffedolives, home-made fruit cake and jars of club cheese with thin wafers thatjust matched them. The girls at Hope had sent down five pounds of fudge asa parting gift to be included in the basket, but best of all, Kit thought, was a young wild turkey, roasted to perfection, and stuffed withchestnuts. 

"Isn't this just like Anne!" Kit exclaimed, exultantly. "She knows how Ilove to nibble on good things to eat. Now we won't have to go into thedining-car for lunch, and it will seem like a regular picnic having ithere. "

The Dean was like a boy in his enjoyment of the unconventional luncheon. He ordered a wonderful salad as his share and a pot of French cocoa. 

"Doesn't this remind you, Daphne, of some of the basket luncheons we usedto have in England and France years ago?" he said, happily. 

"Cousin Beth told us last year about a party she was with that went to theNorth Cape, " Kit related, "and just when they were all transfixed by themajesty of the midnight sun one of the ladies said it was the most uniqueexperience of her whole life, eating crackers and cheese on the NorthCape. "

"She would have left peanut shells on Fujiyama, " the Dean replied, gravely. 

They reached Washington the following day, and here the weather was evenmilder, with almost a touch of autumn left in the air. Christmas wasThursday, and Kit had pleaded for them not to miss Christmas Eve at home, so while the Dean took the urn up to the Institute, and left his recordsthere, Miss Daphne and Kit spent nearly four hours driving around the cityand visiting famous points of interest. 

"Be sure and take a taxi, so you'll cover more ground, " the Dean suggestedwhen he left them, but Kit could not resist the beaming smile of one ofthe old-time darky coachmen, who sat drowsing on the seat of an openvictoria outside the Capitol grounds. He was dressed in an old Colonialblue livery, with a tall silk hat, curving out at the top like those ofthe seventies. 

"But, Aunt Daphne, doesn't he act just exactly as though he had been aretainer in our honored family for generations?" Kit regarded his backwith distinct approbation as they drove along Pennsylvania Avenue, andwhen the old fellow raised his whip in salute to every other old retainerperched on the box of a victoria that they met, she was delighted. 

The Dean joined them for dinner at one of the old exclusive hotels in theWhite House section of town, and here Kit fairly reveled in the generalatmosphere of diplomatic tone. She sighed involuntarily, watching a verybeautiful woman who sat at an adjoining table, when she extended her handin greeting to two foreign-appearing gentlemen in uniform, and they bothbowed over it and kissed it. 

"That's the Continental custom, my dear, " Miss Daphne murmured. 

"Oh, dear, I wish they'd do it here still, " Kit said. "It makes one thinkof powdered hair and lovely, flouncy hoop skirts. I'm going to practice itwhen I get home. "

It was not until they took the through train from Washington for NewLondon that Kit relaxed. It was the last home stretch, and now that theend of the journey drew near, the full importance of the Dean's visit atsuch a time grew upon her. The little hint she had given about the guestchamber being ready was the only thing that would have made the familysuspect she was bringing any guests with her. Not a word had been sent tonotify them of their arrival, but the last two hours in Washington hadbeen given up to the purchasing of gifts, and Kit had looked positivelydazed when the Dean handed her twenty-five dollars with the remark:

"You'll want to buy a few little things too, my dear. "

A few little things. Kit wondered if he had any idea at all of how littlecash had figured in the purchasing of home gifts at Greenacres the pasttwo years. 

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEAN SEES THE STAR

They arrived at Nantic a little past noon, after leaving Washington on themidnight express. There was no stop-over at New York in the morning, thetrain going straight through to New England, and here they found the firstsnowstorm. 

"There are the old gray rock walls, bless them, " exclaimed the Dean, delightedly, "and the evergreens. The west may keep its towering whitepines, but give me the old hemlocks and junipers, with the birches andoaks behind them. "

Kit was so glad to see Mr. Briggs' smiling face on the platform at Nanticthat she almost threw her arms around him, as she jumped from the platformof the train. 

"Well, well, " he ejaculated, "didn't expect to see you around so soon, Miss Robbins. Come to stay a while? Brought company with you, too, didn'tyou? Home folks or just visitors?"

"Home folks, " said the Dean, directly behind them, as he extended hishand, "who haven't been home in thirty years. "

"You don't say so, " Mr. Briggs smiled at him, curiously. "Well, you won'tfind many things changed around here in only that time. Want me to 'phoneover for a rig to take you up? The Robbinses are settled in the Hall now. Shouldn't wonder if it was kind of damp there yet. Had quite a spell'round here of rainy weather before the frost set in. Looks as if 'twasgoing to stay in for a spell of snow now, though. Some boxes came up fromNew York yesterday for your folks, but I couldn't tell what was in 'emoff-hand. Felt sort of hefty, though. "

"It seems so good, " Kit said, fervently, as he moved away from them out ofhearing, "to be around where even the baggage man knows all about you, andtakes an interest in everything. People don't do that out west, do they, Uncle Cassius? Not even in a little place like Delphi. I wonder if anyone will remember you. "

Perhaps the Dean was wondering the same thing as they drove up through theold hill road towards Gilead. One by one he recognized the old familiarlandmarks and farms as they passed them, but Miss Daphne was far tooengrossed in watching the Dean's own face to care for familiar spots onthe landscape. 

It was not until they got up near the Peckham mill that they met any ofthe old neighbors, but here Mr. Peckham himself came leisurely down fromthe mill path to the bridge and hailed Kit. 

"Howdy, Kit. Home for Christmas?" he called cheerily, then taking a goodlook at the other occupants of the old station surrey, "Well, CassPeabody, who in creation ever thought of seeing you around these partsagain. "

The Dean leaned forward, peering over the tops of his glasses with almostthe smile of a boy. 

"It's Dan Peckham, isn't it?" he said. "Yours is the first voice towelcome me home, Dan. "

Mr. Peckham insisted on their waiting a moment while he hurried up to thehouse to call Elvira. Kit sat back in the carriage enjoying the reunion. Miss Daphne had gone to school years before at the Select Academy forYoung Ladies, over in Willimantic, with Elvira Evans long before shebecame Mrs. Peckham. Kit felt, listening to the four of them go over dearold reminiscences, that it was as though she stood at the curtain of thepast, on tiptoe at a peep-hole. 

The early twilight had already begun to set in by the time they reachedthe turn of the road below the Greenacre entrance gates. On the silent, frosty air, Kit heard Shad's clear whistle, and over the fringe of pinesalong the river there came the murmur of the waterfall. There was none ofthe family in sight when they turned up the drive, but suddenly Kit'seager eyes saw a familiar figure out by the chicken coops, and leaningforward she gave a shrill co-oee!

Doris' head went up like a startled deer. She dropped the pan of feed tothe ground and fairly flew to meet them, and then before Kit could evendetach herself from these clinging arms, the big front door swung open, and there in the lamplight was the Mother Bird and Helen. 

Jean was up-stairs as usual at this hour when she was home, reading withher father, but Kit never forgot the feeling of relief that came to herwhen she finally found herself before the open fire in the big living-roomwith all of the family around her, and the full satisfaction of havingbrought home the Peabodys after all these years of estrangement. 

That night, after dinner, while Shad and the Dean were closeted in the bigfront room erecting the huge hemlock Christmas tree, the girls assembledin Jean's room. 

"Cousin Roxy invited us all over to their place, " Helen said, as she doveinto a lower bureau drawer, filled with carefully wrapped parcels, "butmother wanted to have a home Christmas, because the house does seem new tous all, and we never expected to see you home at all. "

"You didn't? Well, I wrote and told you to be sure and have the guestchamber ready. I didn't know myself that Uncle Cassius and Aunt Daphnewere coming until the last minute. " Kit sat perched on the bed in a pinkkimono, brushing her hair. And just at this moment she caught Jean's eyein the mirror, such an amused, knowing eye that Kit caught the fullsignificance of that glance immediately, and laughed. 

"I suppose you feel as though you had brought home the wealth of theIndies, Kit Robbins. You can't tell me that it wasn't intentional, becauseI know you. All I want to know is, who told you?"

"Told me what?" asked Kit innocently. Not for worlds would she havebetrayed Cousin Roxy's confidence. "Any one to hear you talk, Jean, wouldthink that you didn't want to see me at all. "

Jean laughed. It was impossible to get past Kit's wall of evasion when shechose to take refuge behind it. 

"Well, never mind how it has happened, " she said happily. "I'm sure thatyou managed it in some way, and I can tell you right now, it has happenedin the nick of time. You have no idea, Kit, how I have dreaded going backto the city and leaving things as they are. Dad seems to get sodiscouraged now when matters go wrong, and that throws the load of keepingup right on mother's shoulders. "

"I know it, " Kit rejoined, "but if it's anything to you all, I'd bewilling to bet anything that right this minute Uncle Cassius is springingsome glad tidings down-stairs that will turn the tide of fortune. "

"Oh, Kit, " begged Doris, "don't you and Jean talk like that, because Ican't understand what you're driving at; tell it all out at once. "

But Kit only slipped from the bed, and started to dance around the roomprovokingly, with many mysterious gestures. 

"Supposing, curious damsel, that I were to speak unto you in the mysticlanguage of past ages, and say that this windfall has come to the robins'nest out of the tomb of Amenotaph, out of the desert of Ra, supposing, "she had to stop and chuckle at the look of utter astonishment on Doris'round eager face, "supposing I was to tell you that Annui had smiled uponthe revelation, and that the sacred circle had given up its secret at thepunch of your sister's delicate thumb. You see, even when I tell you, youdon't understand, so you'll just have to wait until Uncle Cassius himselftells the story. "

"Kit, you poor child, " Jean exclaimed, laughingly, "you're raving. They'llhave the tree up by now, and it's long after ten. Mother said that we wereto take turns going down in the dark and putting our presents wherever wewanted to. "

"I want to be last of all, " Kit announced. "Doris, you come on in my roomand help me wrap and tie the bundles. Good-night, sweet sisters; happydreams. "

But for the next hour after the lights went out, strange, flitting figuresslipped through the halls and down-stairs into the front room, where thegiant hemlock stood. And the very last one of all was clad in a bath robeand wore a black skullcap. 

Perhaps no one in all Gilead, or indeed wherever the message of the angelsmight reach in the hearts of men that night, had grasped the inner meaningof their song as the old Dean. He had just finished placing his gifts uponthe tree, and was turning to leave, when suddenly from the room above, where Jean and Helen slept, there came a wonderful sound. The old clockdown the hall was striking midnight, and keeping to the custom of thosefortunate enough to have been born in the Robbins family, the girls hadopened their windows to the silent moonlit glory of the night, and sang inchorus:

 "Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant, Oh, come ye, oh, come ye to Bethlehem, Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels, Oh, come let us adore Him, Oh, come let us adore Him, Oh, come let us adore Him, Christ the Lord. "

The Dean knelt in prayer beside the Christmas tree. 

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TENTS OF GREENACRES

If it had not been for the opening of Hope College the week after NewYears, Miss Daphne declared, for her part, she would not have gone back toDelphi until she had at least seen the arbutus bloom again in April. AfterChristmas at Greenacres, Cousin Roxy insisted on both her and the Deanvisiting at Elmhurst, but before they left, the Dean had unfolded hisplan. 

"Daphne is well provided for in case of my passing over, " he said, genially and unexpectedly, the last evening he was with them, "and I havebeen thinking a good deal lately over what Kit has well named the folly of'dead men's shoes. '" He turned to where Mr. Robbins sat on the oppositeside of the round library table, nearest the fire. "So I've taken theliberty, Jerry, of making over to you now what you would have hadinevitably some day. Don't say anything, please. It's a personalindulgence on my part. I want to see, while I am alive, just exactly howmuch happiness it will bring you and yours. It is all well invested, butyou may do as you like with it. I would suggest that you would live on theincome, and stop worrying. "

And when both Mr. Robbins and the Mother Bird tried to expostulate, theDean only laughed at them, brushing their arguments aside. 

"Why, if I were to turn over everything I own to the clan of Robbins, Icould hardly pay back all that Kit has done for me. I'm a new man, Jerry. Sometimes I feel like a prehistoric toad just released from a clay-bankand blinking in the sunlight. Not only has she taught me the joy ofliving, but through her ingenuity she brought about one of the greatestdiscoveries that has been made in years on ancient Egypt. I feel guilty intaking any credit for it whatsoever, for while I was groping blindly afterthe solution, she put her finger, as it were, on the whole source of thetrouble. "

After they had returned west, and Jean had gone back to New York, Kitfound her opportunity of laying her summer plan before her mother andfather. 

"There are acres and acres here that we never use at all. All thatwonderful land on both sides of the river up through the valley, and thetwo islands besides. What I thought we could do was this, if you couldjust let us girls manage it. Couldn't we start a regular tent colony? Jeanwas telling me before she left about an artists' colony up in theCatskills, where they have tents fitted up for light housekeeping, and I'msure we could do it here. "

It had taken much argument and figuring on paper before the consent ofboth was won, but Cousin Roxy approved of the scheme highly. 

"Land alive, Elizabeth Ann, " she exclaimed, heartily, "don't crushanything that looks like budding initiative in your girls. I'd let themput tents all over the place until it blossomed like the wilderness. There's a stack of old furniture up in the garret at Maple Lawn and overat Elmhurst, too, and they're welcome to it. Get some pots of paint inand go to work, girls. "

Kit acted immediately on the suggestion and drove up with Shad to lookover the collection of discarded antiques in the two garrets. What sheliked best of all were the three-drawer, old-fashioned chests andhand-made wooden chairs. There were ewer stands also, and several oldsingle slat bedsteads. 

"We're going to paint them all over, mother dear, in the loveliest yellowsand grays, and Shad says that it won't be any trick at all for him tobuild the floors for us, and he says he can fix up littlehanging-cupboards like they have in the tea-rooms, don't you know, to holda few plates and dishes for light housekeeping. "

"I don't see what else we're going to need, " Helen put in, thoughtfully, "except the finishing touches, and I can add those. They'll need some jarsfor wild flowers and cushions and little things like that. "

"Well, don't forget that they'll have to eat some time, " Cousin Roxyremarked. "Get some two-burner oil stoves and folding tables and campchairs, or if you want to be real rustic and quaint, have Shad here knocksome white birch ones together, and probably the city folks will admirethem more than anything you could buy. Lay in a stock of candles andbracket lamps. I'd make them bring up their own bedding if I were you, 'cause that would be the only nuisance you'd have to contend with. "

"It's too bad, " Kit said, reflectively, "that we're so far away from anykind of stores. I'm planning on eight tents all together, and there'll beever so many things people will want to buy. Do you suppose, mother, thatMr. Peckham would let Sally manage anything like that up here? She's justdying to do something besides housework all her life. "

"But where would you put her, dear?"

"Put her in another tent, if we couldn't do anything else, but I'll bet acookie the boys down there at the mill could throw together a perfectlydandy little slab shack with birch trimmings. They could either have itdown by the mill or put it right here at the crossroads. Sally could putin all kinds of supplies, kodaks and phonographs and post-cards andcandy. "

"Better put in a few canned goods, too, and staples, " added Cousin Roxy. "I declare, I'd kind of like to have a hand in that myself. I'd put Cynthyto work right away at home bakery goods. Kit, I do believe, child, you'vestarted something that may waken Gilead out of its Rip Van Winkleslumber. "

Kit thought so too before she had half started the winter's work. Shadbecame a tower of strength when it came to painting the old furniture. They took one of the large upper chambers that was unoccupied, and set upa stove to keep it warm. Helen called it the atelier, but it was more likea paint shop before Shad finished. 

Jean did her share by sending up some stencils she had designed herselffor the backs of the chairs and panels in the chests and headboards. 

"They look just exactly like the painted furniture you see in the New Yorkshops, " Cousin Roxy declared, the first time she inspected the results. "When the Judge and I were down before Christmas, I saw a littledining-room set that looked kind of cute, although it wasn't anything butplain gray with a few morning-glory vines trailing over it. I think you'vedone splendidly, girls. You've set your hand to the plow and started somefine deep furrows. But just remember, it's a long way around a ten-acrelot, so faint not in the heat of the day. "

Kit herself attacked the problem of winning over the Peckhams to her ideaof Sally's taking charge of a little store at the crossroads. Sallyherself sat with wide anxious eyes on the extreme edge of a blackhaircloth armchair, while her mother said over and over again it wasutterly impossible. 

"Why, I couldn't get along without Sally, especially in the summer, withall the fruit to put up and the young ones home from school. "

"But, Mrs. Peckham, " pleaded Kit, "when you were Sally's age, wasn't thereever anything that you wanted to do or be with all your heart and soul?Didn't you ever just want to get away from what you had been doing foryears, and start something new?"

"Well, come to think of it now, " smiled Mrs. Peckham, "I'd have given myeye-teeth to have left home and gone to be a teacher in some town. "

"Then please let Sally do this. Cousin Roxy says she's willing to keep aneye over everything, and one of us girls will probably be helping her outmost of the time, too. It would only be until the middle of September, although if it wasn't too cold later on, we might be able to rent thetents and outfits to the hunters when they come up. Piney'll be home forvacation and Elvy and Sylvy can help you. They're eight years old now, andAnne's fifteen and Charlotte's twelve. Why, it isn't fair to them to letthem think all Sally's good for is to stay at home and do housework. Youwill let her go, won't you, Mrs. Peckham?"

Mrs. Peckham sighed and smiled at the same time. 

"You're a fearful good pleader. I don't suppose it would hurt the othergirls any to take hold and help, but it's such a nuisance to have to teachthem everything when Sally can go right ahead. Still, I'm willing, and ifher father is, why, she can go. Seems as if you girls are startingsomething you can't finish, but mebbe you can. "

Piney Hancock had boarded in Willimantic that winter for her third year inhigh school. So the girls had seen very little of her since the previousSeptember, but Kit rounded up the old members of the Hiking Club, andwelded them together into a sort of efficiency committee to help with thesummer plan. 

CHAPTER XXV

COAXING THE WILDERNESS

The first part of April was unusually mild. A sort of balmy hush seemed tolie over the barren land, as though spring had chosen to steal upon itsleeping. Doris brought in the first violets on the fifteenth, with a fewwisps of saxifrage and ragged robin. Shad brought up a load of lumber fromthe mill the same day, and started to make the flooring for the tents. 

Second-hand army tents had been secured, and almost daily something wasadded to the store of supplies for the summer venture. The next problem tobe solved was finding the occupants for the tents, and here it was Jeanwho helped out. 

"You don't want to get a lot of people, " she wrote, "who will be expectingall the comforts of a typical summer resort or the excitement of theboardwalk. You want nature-lovers, the kind of people who really and trulywant to rest and invite their souls. So I suggest my spreading the gladtidings among the art students here of Greenacre Farms. They are sure topass it along to their friends. Make your prices, sisters mine, attractiveand alluring, and I know the world will make a pathway to your door, assome famous hermit remarked. I am going to sketch a few wonderful placardsannouncing the golden opportunity. "

The next surprise that came was a visit from Piney Hancock, one Saturdayafternoon in May. The girls had gone up after wild flowers into thewood-lot. Here Shad and Mr. Robbins had been cutting birches for nearly aweek. Helen wandered through the violet-carpeted glades in a perfectday-dream. The warmth and glow had fallen on the land so unexpectedlyafter days of rain, and now the whole woodland was athrill with the songsof birds and the chirp and chatter of brooding things. 

"I wonder just who Helen is making believe she is now, " Doris said, reflectively, as she watched the sauntering figure in the misty distance. 

"Probably Fair Rosamond, or Blanchefleur, " Kit replied, down on her handsand knees after a little patch of flag-root that bordered the bed of abrook. "You know, this fall I'm going to take a whole sack of bulbs andcome up here through these woods and plant whole clumps of crocus andnarcissus and hyacinths broadcast. Just imagine poet's narcissusunderneath those drooping hemlocks. "

"I think there's a deer breaking through that path, " Helen called to themsoftly, "with long, spreading antlers!"

The girls listened and caught the unmistakable sound of some large animalpushing its way through the overgrown cow path, but instead of an antleredhead, Molly's white nose showed, and Piney called to them gaily from herperch on the old mare's back:

"I had to ride over the minute I got the letter. Who on earth do yousuppose, girls, wants to rent one of your tents for the whole summer?"

She slipped off the saddle and held up an envelope, and every one of thethree girls guessed the same name:

"Ralph MacRae!"

"Oh, dear, I thought it would be a surprise to you, " Piney laughed, dropping down on a patch of green moss. "I had written out to Honey, andtold him all about your tent colony. You know they had planned to comeeast the first of June anyway, and he wants to know whether you have oneto spare along the river. "

"It's the gem of the whole collection, " Kit announced proudly. "Do youremember, Piney, the place where Billie and I had our birch tepee longago? He used to call it Turtle Cove. There's a dandy shore there, andcanoeing on the lake above the Falls. I'd much rather have Honey and Ralphthere than strangers. "

"Well, you'll probably have me, too, " Piney announced, "because I'm justdying to go camping. It seems so queer, Kit, that none of us ever thoughtof it before. Here are these glorious woods and hills around us, withmiles and miles of land as wild as you'd find anywhere, yet we all clingto the little farm spots. I hope somebody else will go ahead and put uptents the way you folks have done. I was telling a lot of the girls athigh school about it, and they may take a tent for a couple of weeks. "

"And Cousin Roxy told me yesterday that she was positive Billie and Mr. Howard would come down for a while in July or August. " Kit heaved a sighof contentment, as she rose from the ground. "I see that my wilderness isgoing to blossom like the rose, Proserpine Hancock. Now, if you'll kindlytell me where all these tent dwellers of mine are going to get fresh waterfrom when the brooks dry up, I'll be glad. They can't all trot way up tothe house to our well. "

"Trot it to them, " Piney suggested instantly. "Charge them five cents apail for it, and let one of the little Peckham boys handle that. I'll tellyou one thing I bet you girls don't know. There's a never-failing springabout a mile up the road, and a lot of them could get water there. It'sright near Cynthy Allen's old place. "

Kit regarded her admiringly, as they all started back down the woodroadtowards home, Molly trailing along behind leisurely. 

"I believe Cousin Roxy was perfectly right. She told me long ago, Piney, before I ever knew you, that you knew where every single wild flowerbloomed in all Gilead Township, and every cow path and brook. "

Piney's eyes held a little wistful gleam, but she smiled with the olddauntless tilt to her head. 

"I guess I do around Greenacres, " she said. "You see, Honey and I alwaysthought it would be our home some day, and about the first thing that Ican remember is mother telling us all the places around here that sheloved best when she was a girl. I suppose that's why I remember them all. "

Doris and Helen were far ahead, trying to get down some branches ofdogwood that hung invitingly over the stone wall at the side of the road, and Kit laid one hand in comradely fashion on Piney's shoulder. What shemeant to say was how wonderful and brave she had always thought Piney was, and how oftentimes, when her own pluck failed her, she would think of theHancocks and how they had kept their faces valiantly turned to the sunnyside of care through all the years of necessity and privation, but girlsare curious people, and all that she really said was:

"Life's awfully queer, isn't it, Piney?"

Piney nodded with a little smile. 

"It's fun though, " she said, "if you just keep your face to the front andnever look behind. "

CHAPTER XXVI

PAYING GUESTS

The first campers were due to arrive the second week in June, buteverything was in complete readiness long before that time. The girlsnever wearied of making their tours of inspection to be sure nothing hadbeen overlooked, and each time it seemed as if they added a few morefinishing touches. 

Cousin Roxy declared it was all so inviting that she felt like closing upthe big house and coaxing the Judge to camp out with her. 

Instead of grouping the tents together, they had chosen the mostpicturesque and sequestered spots to hide them away in. There was one on alittle jutting point of land near the Peckham mill. Here, the river sweptout in a wide U-shaped curve that was crowned with gray rocks and pines. The music of the falls reached it, and the road was only about quarter ofa mile across the fields to the north, but apparently it was completelyisolated. 

"I'd like to put a poet in there, " Helen said, "or a musician. Wasn't itRubenstein, Kit, who used to take his violin and play the music of therain and falling water?"

"Ask me not, child, ask me not, " returned Kit, practically. "All I'mwondering about this minute is how on earth Shad ever expected this fly tostay put, if a good, old-fashioned Gilead thunder-storm ever hit it. "

Helen watched her as she climbed up on a camp stool, with most precariousfooting, and tried to readjust the fly at the back of the tent. 

"Don't you have to take them in when it storms or the wind blows, justlike sails?" she asked. "Ingeborg and Astrid told me that. They learned itfrom their camp-fire rules. I'm sure you don't leave them stringing outlike that, Kit. "

All at once Doris came speeding around the rock path, her eyes wide withexcitement, her whole manner full of mystery. 

"There's an automobile just stopped in the road, " she exclaimed, "and theman in it asked me who lived in the tent over here. "

"I never supposed any one could see that tent from the road. " Kit's toneheld a distinct note of disappointment. "What did he want to sell us, Dorrie, lightning rods or sewing machines?"

"Oh, Kit, don't, " pleaded Doris. "He's really in earnest, and he's comingover here right now. I told him all about everything, and he thinks hemight want to rent a tent. "

Kit's countenance cleared like magic. She forgot the refractory strip ofcanvas, and descended immediately from the camp stool. 

"Lead me, sister darling, to this first paying guest, who cannot resistthe woodland lure. Helen, don't you dare say anything to spoil theinviting picture which I shall give him. I don't see what more he couldwant. " She hesitated a moment, surveying the river, almost directly belowthe sloping rock. "Why, he could almost sit up in bed in the morning andhaul in his fish-lines from yon winding stream with a fine catch forbreakfast on it. "

"Oh, hurry, Kit, and don't stop to spout, " Doris begged. "He is reallyawfully nice, and he's in earnest, I know he is. "

But Kit went with dignity across the fields to the road where theautomobile stood with its lone occupant. He must have been over fortyyears of age, but with his closely curled dark hair and alert smile heappeared much younger. He wore no hat, and was heavily tanned. It seemedto Kit at first glance as though she had never seen eyes so full of keencuriosity and genial friendliness. 

"How do you do?" he called as soon as she came within hailing distance. "Are you the young lady who has the renting of these tents which I seeevery once in a while?"

Kit admitted that she was. He nodded his head approvingly and smiled, abroad pleasant smile which seemed to include the entire landscape. 

"I like it here, " he announced with emphasis. "It is sequestered andsilent. I have not met a single team or car on the road for miles. "

"Oh, that happens often, " said Kit, eagerly. "There are days when nobodypasses at all except the mail carrier. "

"It suits me, " he exclaimed, buoyantly. "I must have quiet and perfectrelaxation. I will rent one of your tents and occupy it at once. I havebeen touring this part of the country looking for a spot which appealed tome. "

"We have one on the hill yonder, " Kit suggested. He seemed ratherpeculiar, and perhaps it would be just as well to sequester him as far offas possible. "It is right on the edge of the pines, and faces the west. The sunsets are beautiful from there. "

"No, no, " he repeated. "I like the sound of the water. I hear falls belowhere. I will take that tent I see over there. "

So came the first tent dweller to Greenacres. Kit had still been in doubt, and taking no chances on strangers within the gates, she had guided Mr. Ormond up to her father to make the closing arrangements on renting thewaterfall tent, as the girls called it, for the entire summer. The mostamazing part was that he left a check that first day for $75. 00, fullrental for ten weeks. 

"I must not be interrupted or bothered by little things, " he told Mr. Robbins, earnestly. "I must have perfect isolation or I cannot do mywork. "

"Now, what on earth do you suppose he meant by that?" Kit asked, after theunderslung gray roadster had passed out of sight. "My goodness, girls, hemay be a counterfeiter. You can bet a cookie Gilead would look upon him asa suspicious character when he could pay seventy-five dollars right downall at once. "

"I rather liked his face, " Mrs. Robbins remarked, "and he gave your fatherexcellent business references. I think you're very fortunate that hehappened to travel this way. "

He arrived promptly the following day and arranged with Shad to put up theautomobile in the barn. 

"Well, I've lugged down all his belongings to the tent, " Shad said, ratherhopelessly, that night, "and I can't find out for the life of me what kindof business he's in. He had a lot of heavy bundles, and I asked him a fewquestions about them, but he didn't seem to take kindly to it, so I lethim alone. There's one thing though he's got, and that's a big photographin a silver frame of an all-fired handsome woman he says is his wife. She's dressed just like a queen, crown and all. "

Helen's eyes were bright with interest, as she listened, but Kit'sstraight, dark brows were drawn together in a frown of perplexity. 

"I suppose we'll just have to wait until we find out, " she said, "butwe'll hope for the best. Piney says he's made arrangements to buy eggs andchickens from them, so I see where our paying guests are going to scatterprosperity around the neighborhood. "

Ralph MacRae and Honey arrived the seventeenth of June and took the TurtleCove tent. The girls did not see very much of them until after Jean cameup from the city, but then Ralph became what Doris called "the unexpectedguest, " dropping in at any time. Helen was the one who suspected a buddingromance, but she contented herself with watching Jean meditatively, andinvesting her with the glamour of all her favorite heroines. 

The first fruits of Jean's efforts to colonize the tents came with aletter from Bab Crane. 

"You're going to have four of the girls from school through July anyway, and August if they like it. I've told them the scenery is perfectlygorgeous and they can pitch their easels anywhere they like, so be sureand give them the tents with the best outlook. I think it probable thatyou may catch Miss Emery, too, if Frances writes back approvingly. She'sawfully odd, and lives all alone in a beautiful old mansion down onWashington Square, but her pictures are splendid, and she's a member ofthe N. A. D. "

The next surprise was a letter from Billie. He could not reach home beforethe middle of July, as he was going on another trip with Stanley, butthere were five of the boys from his class who wanted to come up and camp. 

"I've told them the fishing is great around there, and they're going tomake the trip from here in Jeff Saunders' car. Jeff's from Georgia, andmost of the fellows have never been north. We're going to join them lateron, so if you've got a bunch of tents together, you better save us three. 

"Now, Kit, listen here, when I struck Delphi, and landed with all thatcrowd of girls unexpectedly, you know how well I behaved, just for yoursake. Don't you get superior and toploftical with the boys when they come, because every last one of them is the right sort, and they're expecting tofind Gilead folks waiting for them with open arms from what I've toldthem. "

"Well, upon my word, I like that, " exclaimed Kit, as she threw the letterdown on the table. "Any one would think that I didn't know how to treatpeople. Just the same, we'll put them all over in the glen, where they cando just as they please, and not interfere with high art or our mysteriousstranger. "

Sally opened her "General Emporium" the first of June. It stood exactly atthe crossroads, beside Greenacre Hall. There was the waterfall, and theold bridge leading to the Scotland road. With Shad to superintend thework, the Peckham boys had erected a little slab shack, and Sally hadplanted wild cucumber and morning-glory vines thickly about the outside, the last week in April, so that by June they had clambered half-way up. There were rustic window boxes of birch, filled with nasturtiums andWandering Jew. 

Inside the store there were two counters, one on either side as youentered, and these had been Mr. Peckham's contribution to the good cause. Several old hickory armchairs from Cousin Roxy's helped to give theinterior an inviting appearance, and Sally put up little, thin scrimcurtains at the windows. 

At first the stocking up of the store had been somewhat of a problem, butCousin Roxy helped out with the business plan, and by this time nearlyevery one in Gilead was taking a keen, personal interest in the girls'venture. 

It was Ma Parmalee who first suggested Sally selling on the commissionplan. 

"I've got thirty-five jars of the best kind of preserves and canned goodsin Gilead, though I say it as shouldn't, " she announced, one day, when shehad stopped on her way by the crossroads to look over the newestablishment. "Most of them are pints, and besides I've got--land, Idon't know how many glasses of jell. I'd be willing to give you a rightgood share of whatever you could make on 'em, if you could sell 'em offfor me down here. "

Sally agreed gladly, and the fruit made a splendid showing along the uppershelves behind the counters. Not only that, but it began to sell at once. Mr. Ormond bought up all of the quince jelly after sampling one glass, andRalph acknowledged that he and Honey were perfectly willing to becomeresponsible for the strawberry preserves and spiced pears. By the timeFrances Cunningham and the other girls from the Academy had arrived, Sally was already looking around for more supplies. 

Then Cynthy Allen had come over with Cousin Roxy one day. Ever since herhome had burned the year before she had been under the friendly roof up atElmhurst, helping out according to her strength, and never fully realizinghow the shelter of the old house kept her from the poor-farm down on thePlains. She came into the store with an old black lace veil fluttering asusual from her hat, and a brown bombazine dress that dated from theeighties. 

"Well, you've got the place fixed up real sightly, " she said. "I wonder--Idon't suppose you'd have any sale for braided rag rugs, would you? I'vegot some awful pretty ones packed away in my chest, brand new, too. I'vebeen sewing and winding all winter for Roxana, too, but I guess she plansto use them for carpets. "

Sally accepted the suggestion instantly, and down came half a dozen ovalrugs, braided in Cynthy's best style, that were snapped up at once by thetent dwellers. Frances bought three to put around in the tent which shehad reserved for Miss Emery. 

"Haven't you got some of that painted tinware, too, Sally?" she asked. "Idon't know just what you call it, but I mean the black candlesticks andlittle trays with trailing vines on them. I'd like to put some of thosearound. "

The very next day Helen started off with Piney on the trail of oldcandlesticks. They stopped at nearly every house they came to, andreturned with a perfect treasure trove of old relics. 

"Why, we found candlesticks stuck out in wood-sheds and corn-cribs, rustyas could be, but the real thing in colonial art, and mother, " Helen added, almost lowering her voice with a touch of awe, "what on earth do you thinkMrs. Parmalee had on her hen-house door? This!"

She held up an ancient brass knocker, a smiling faun's head encircled inwreathing vines. 

"That doesn't look as if it ever belonged on a Puritan's front door, " saidMrs. Robbins, laughingly. "I rather think it must have come from MerryMount, where they held the first Maypole dance and shocked good CottonMather. I think I'll have to buy that from Sally myself. "

There were several old lacquered trays and a couple of old gray stonedasher churns. 

"We'll take those and fill them with yellow daisies, " Piney said, admiringly, "and I'll bet a cookie they'll sell the first day to some ofthe artist crowd. I found them in the Bennetts' smoke-house covered withthe dust of ages. "

It was little things like these that made Sally's shop unusual andinviting, but Piney started a new venture herself accidentally. She andSally had always been chums, and now she spent most of her time helpingher. It became the order of the day for them to have a cup of tea aboutfour o'clock. Piney would take a candle-stand by the west window and makeit look so inviting with a little strip of homespun linen and a spray offlowering almond that no one could resist tea from the old blue ware whichMrs. Peckham had donated. 

They were just having tea one afternoon when Miss Emery came in with thegirls from the Academy in New York. There was Frances, and the two Farleysisters, Gwen and Elise. The other girl was Cecil Fanshawe. Kit had a wayof summing up family history with a few brief, terse remarks, and she hadall four indexed and filed, so to speak. 

"Cecil's from Fanshawe Grange, somewhere in Middlesex, England. Father's aMajor in France, mother's dead, got two aunts in New York. Gwen and Elisecome from Ohio, got French blood from colonial days. Frances is oldKnickerbocker stock, born on Washington Square, warranted sterling. I likeCecil best. "

When they discovered the tea-table that afternoon, Miss Emery insistedthat she would not leave until she had partaken also from the willowpattern cups, and Sally, all blushes and smiles, prepared her first guesttea. 

After they had gone she looked at the seventy-five cents in her hand, asthough it had fallen from the sky, but Piney took the cue from Fate. 

"We will serve afternoon tea here from now on, " she said, "and it's goingto be twenty cents instead of fifteen. I know what we'll call this place, Sally. There are willow trees all around here, and along the river. Thisis the 'Sign of the Willow Tree. ' We'll make it a stopping-off place forall good pilgrims. "

CHAPTER XXVII

HELENITA'S SONG-BIRD

The tenth of July was always a momentous date in Gilead local history. Every year on that day, down in the little church on the Plains, the grandold guard of '83 held their Carberry Reunion. 

The girls had heard of it first through Cousin Roxy, who had been one ofthe pupils of Professor Carberry in the old days at the Gayheadschoolhouse. 

"Land, girls, if we didn't have our reunion every year, we'd begin to feelsome of us were growing old, " she had said laughingly. "The Professor'sclass has held that reunion every year since he had to give up the schoolin '89. There are a few empty places with the coming around of each July, but I guess we'll keep on holding them as long as the Professor holdsout. "

It was quite an exclusive affair in its way, so that this year, when theywere both invited to attend with their mother, Jean and Kit felt thehonor. Long afterwards, when she had attained her assured place in theworld of art, Jean exhibited a painting which won her her first medal. Itwas only a shadowy interior of an old meetinghouse. The sunshine filteredthrough half-closed green blinds at the long windows. Up on the platformthere sat Professor Carberry, a little, shrunken figure in blackbroadcloth, the lean, scholarly old face, blanched with the snows ofeighty-odd years, filled with eagerness as he looked down on the littleassembled remnant of the old guard. 

Cousin Bethiah Newell always said that this picture was Jean'smasterpiece, and she got the inspiration for it on this day. Kit sat veryerect at her end of the pew, but even she, who prided herself on beingunemotional, had tears on her lashes listening to these dear old-timescholars reciting the poetry out of their old fourth and fifth readers. 

Judge Ellis rose with a radiant light in his eyes and spouted, "Atmidnight in his guarded tent, the Turk lay dreaming of the hour, " and foran encore he rolled out "Old Ironsides. "

 "Ay, tear her tattered ensign down, Long has it waved on high. "

Cousin Roxy obliged with "Woodman, spare that tree, " but for an encore shegave a tender poem of old-time days, called "Twenty Years Ago. " Its versesrang in Kit's head all the way home, and when she learned that MissDaphne, too, had been one of the old Professor's scholars, she wrote themdown and sent them west to her. 

 "I've wandered to the village, Tom, I've sat beneath the tree, Upon that schoolhouse playground, That sheltered you and me. But few were there to greet me, Tom, And few were left we know, Who played with us upon the green, Just twenty years ago. "

"I'll never forget it as long as I live, Cousin Roxy, " Kit declared, fervently; "talk about the twanging of heart strings; why, it seemed tome as though I could just feel the way you all felt as you sat there. Itwas the queerest thing, because Mrs. Peckham is stout and getting gray, and yet when she got up to recite she actually looked like a plump littlegirl with her brown eyes and rosy cheeks. And Deacon Simmons was as boyishas could be, when he stood there blushing and reading his class paper on'Old Friendships. '"

"Well, child, " said Mrs. Ellis, "I'm glad that you could see a little ofthe glory that gave light to us. You'll find out as you grow older andstand upon life's hills of rest that the days of childhood and going toschool are the sweetest and best that life gives to you. I don't mindsaying that I love every clapboard in the little old red schoolhouse, andwhen I read in a magazine the other day that such things were a thing ofthe past I wanted to call out that it wasn't any such thing. We had oneright here at our crossroads over a hundred and thirty years old, andstill turning out its hundred per cent. Graduates. "

The next morning, just after Shad had gone whistling up to the barn, Dorisspied a familiar figure coming along the side drive towards the wellsweep, and leaned out of the window, calling with all her heart:

"Hello, Billie!"

Billie waved back with a cheery greeting that brought the other girlshurrying to the window, too. 

"The camp's immense, " he said. "We got in late last night and I knew theway down, so we didn't disturb anybody. Even found the old boat in thesame place, Kit. "

"Well, you wouldn't have if I hadn't hauled it there, where I knew youcould lay your hand right on it. I rather thought it would be just likeyou to arrive by the light of the moon and try to swim over. "

Billie chuckled. He knew from old, past experience that Kit's scoldingsdidn't amount to any more than the perturbed clucking of a hen. They hadbrought up a load of supplies with them, but huckleberry pancakes withhoney lured them both up for breakfast that first morning. And even Kitwas silent as Stanley related all of his adventures during the year. Itseemed to her that she had never really looked at him before, that is, toget the best impression, without prejudice. Somehow, he looked younger andmore boyish this year, anyway, in his camper's low-necked sport shirt andkhaki riding breeches. Kit noted for the first time his crispy, curlyyellow hair, and long, half-closed blue eyes, that always seemed to belaughing at you. He had dimples, too, and these Kit resented. 

"I can't abide dimples in a boy or a man's face, " she declared, privately, to Helen, when the latter was dwelling on Stanley's good looks. 

"But, Kit, all of the Roman emperors had dimples in their chins. "

"What if they did? They're a fine lot to judge by. " Kit meditated for amoment and then added, "I don't think I like blonde, curly hair either. "

"Well, I do, " Helen answered, placidly. "I think he'd look wonderful indoublet and hose with a long cloak thrown around him. I think he's muchbetter looking than Ralph. "

"You'd better not let Jean hear you say so, " Kit told her sagely. "Iwouldn't be very much surprised if something mighty interesting happenedhere this summer. I heard mother and Cousin Roxy talking about Ralph andJean the other day. "

"Oh, Kit, don't be mean. Tell me what they said, please. I won't tell. "

"Impossible, child, " returned Kit, loftily. "In fact, it was only what Imight call a family rumor. But, I can tell you this much, I know perfectlywell that Ralph MacRae has asked Dad for his eldest daughter's hand, and Idon't know a blessed thing more. "

Helen sighed happily. 

"I hope she has a September wedding, all gold and purple. It would justsuit Jean. If one could only dress her in violet velvet with a girdle ofamethysts set with pearls, and braid her hair with strands of jewels, too. Jean always has that far-away look, in her eyes that princesses shouldhave. "

"Well, I don't see where you get your princess pattern from, " remarkedKit. "From all the recent pictures that I've seen, they're a veryordinary, old-fashioned lot of young persons, and decidedly at thedumpling stage. Besides, Jean herself might have something to say aboutit. It will be her wedding, you know, Helen. "

They had walked down to the Peckham mill after supper to get some suppliesthat Danny Peckham had promised to bring up from Nantic. Just as they cameto the turn of the road there came a strange sound from the direction ofthe waterfall tent, deep, rich strains of music, almost as low pitched andthrilling as the sound of the water itself. Both girls stood stock stilllistening, until Helen whispered:

"It must be Mr. Ormond. He's playing on something, isn't he?"

"A 'cello, child, " Kit said, drawing in a deep breath as though she couldfairly inhale the sweetness of the music on the night air. "I haven'theard one since we left the Cove, and it's mother's favorite music. Iwish I knew what he's playing. It sounds like Solveig's song from PeerGynt, and I love that. "

"Then, that's what he does. " Helen's tone held a touch of admiring awe asshe listened. "And we thought he might be anything from a counterfeiter toan escaped convict hiding away up here. Oh, Kit, why do you suppose hekeeps away from every one?"

"Probably got a hidden sorrow, " Kit answered. "Still he's got a terribleappetite. Mrs. Gorham says she doesn't see how he ever puts away theamount of food he does. He buys whole roast chickens and eats them allhimself. "

Just then the music ceased suddenly. The flap of the tent lifted towardsthe roadway, and Mr. Ormond sent a hail across the twilight gloom. 

"Is that you, Shad?"

"No, sir, it's just us girls, " answered Kit. "We're going down to themill. "

"Would you mind so very much, Miss Kit, asking if any one has telephoneda telegram up for me from the station? I am expecting one. "

"There, you see, " Helen said, dubiously, as they went on down the road. "We just get rid of one mystery, and he hands us another one to solve. Whoon earth would he be getting a telegram from?"

Kit laughed and slipped her arm around the slender shoulders that weregrowing so quickly up to her own. 

"You're getting just as bad as every one else here in Gilead, Helenita. Ithought only Mr. Ricketts took an interest in telegrams and post-cards. "

Nevertheless, when Sally told them that there had been a message 'phonedup from Nantic, even Kit showed quick interest. 

It was signed "Concetta, " and the message read:

"Arrive Nantic, ten-two. All love and tenderness. Contract signed. "

The girls returned after delivering the message, brimful of the news, butMr. Robbins laughed at them. 

"Why, bless your hearts, " he said, "I could have told you long ago allabout Bryan Ormond. He is one of the greatest 'cellists we have, and ismarried to Madame Concetta Doria, the grand-opera singer. He told me whenhe first took the tent for the summer, but as he was composing a newopera, he wanted absolute solitude up here, and asked me not to let anyone know who they were. "

"Talk about entertaining an angel unawares, " Jean exclaimed. "Now, Helen, you'll have your chance, if you can only get acquainted with her. I cansee you perched on their threshold drinking in trills and quavers the restof the summer. "

Helen only smiled happily. It was she who had pleaded most for thepreservation of the empire grand piano. The one in the gold case with allthe Watteau figures and garlands painted on it, that had been saved as oneof the "white hyacinths" from the old home. After the day's work wasover, it was always Helen who stole into the dim front room to listenwhile her mother played over favorite airs from the old grand-operas. Perhaps only Helen really understood how at this time Gilead and all itsrural delights vanished, and in their place came memories of the days backat the Cove, when the season tickets at the opera had been as natural apart of the year's pleasures as setting hens were here. 

"Have you ever heard her sing, mother?" she asked, that first evening, after Mrs. Robbins had played the "Shadow Dance" from "Dinorah" and thetrio from "Traviata. "

"I heard her in both of these, dear, and ever so many more. I think myfavorite was Rigoletto. She was a beautiful, girlish Gilda, but that isyears ago. You girls will love her. "

"And just to think of her coming to live in a tent at Greenacre Farms, "Helen said, almost in a hushed whisper. "It seems as if we ought to offerthem the royal suite. "

"If you did, they would run away. That is just what they have come hereto escape from, all the royal suites and pomp. "

Even Jean was on the tiptoe of expectancy to get her first look at MadameOrmond. While not one of the girls could have explained just exactly howthey suspected she would look, still they held a blurred picture of apicturesque mortal set apart from ordinary home folks, who would probablydress more or less eccentrically. 

Kit was in the kitchen making scones for lunch, when a shadow fell acrossthe entry threshold. Doris sat on the edge of the table by the windowpicking over blackberries, and the two stared fixedly at the intruder. Shewas frankly over forty, a large buoyant type of woman with a mass of curlyashen blonde hair and sparkling black eyes, the north of Italy type, witha wonderful complexion, as Helen said later, like the skin of a yellowpeach. Perhaps it was her smile that charmed the girls mostly, though, atthat first glance. It was such a radiant smile of good fellowship when shepeered into the shadowy interior of the old kitchen. 

"Good-morning, everybody. I have come for butter and eggs, and milk. " Shespied the two-quart pail of berries on the table, and gave a little cry ofinterest. "Where do you find those, my dear?"

Doris told her shyly that they came from the rock pasture on the hillbehind the house. 

"Will you come down to the tent this afternoon and take me there? Mr. Ormond is very, very busy working on his new opera, and I must be away andlet him write in peace, so you and I will have to follow the trailstogether, yes?" She smiled down into Doris' piquant, freckled little face, and just at this moment there came from the living-room, where Helen wasdusting, Dinorah's Shadow Song, sung in a clear, girlish soprano. 

Madame Ormond laid her finger on her lips and listened, her eyes brightwith attention and interest. 

"It is still another one of you?" she asked, softly, when the melody diedaway. "You shall bring her down to the tent to me and let my husband tryher voice with the 'cello. It is his big baby, that 'cello, but it is verywise; it never gives the wrong decision on a voice, and she has a verybeautiful one. "

"Well, " Kit declared, with a deep sigh, after the diva had gone on downtowards the road with her butter, eggs and milk, "we've always believed wewere an exceptional family. In fact Mrs. Gorham told me once she thoughtevery last one of us had very intelligent faces, but now we know we arebudding geniuses. Of course, Dorrie, you and I haven't budded very much sofar, but with an artist and a prima donna in a family, we'll have to beginour song of triumph pretty soon. I'll bet a cookie she'll go up there inthe pasture every day and do her vocal practicing out of hearing of the'cello, and Helenita will perch on the nearest rock and play echo. "

CHAPTER XXVIII

STANLEY PAYS AN OLD SCORE

The first week in August, Jean, who had acted as treasurer of the tentfund, announced that it had proved a solid financial success. Every tentwas full and booked up to the middle of September. The girls from the ArtSchool had persuaded two more batches to find the trail to Gilead, andBillie's boy friends had turned their tents into headquarters for the clubthey belonged to at school. 

Jeff Saunders had used his car back and forth until Kit declared it madeher think of the fox, goose and bag of corn story. 

"Jeff skips down to Richmond and takes back a couple of boys, lays offhimself for a couple of weeks, and lo, and behold, the car comes back withthree new ones, but I must say that they're the best behaved lot of boys Iever saw. You'd hardly know they were around at all, except for thetwanging of ukuleles and guitars at night. And they certainly have kept ussupplied with fish ever since they came. I think it's done Dad a world ofgood going away with them and kind of turning into a boy again. Stanleysaid the other day they were going out fishing all night just as soon asthe bass were running. "

Mrs. Gorham was setting the table for lunch and stopped at the last words, one hand on her ample hip, and a look of anxiety in her eyes. 

"They ain't calculatin' to fish over there beyond the dam, are they?That's where the Gaskell boy come near drowning a year ago, when his boatupset. It's just full of sunken snags for half a mile up the river abovethe island. "

"I guess that's where they're going just the same. Billie Ellis thinksthat he knows every foot of space on that upper lake and river justbecause he's poled around on it for years with that old leaky, flat-bottomed boat of his. "

"Well, it's all right in the daytime, " Mrs. Gorham rejoined, "but Iwouldn't give two cents for their safety fishing for bass on a dark nightamong those snags. "

It happened that the very next day Kit decided that it was high time togarner in the crabapple crop and start making jelly. The best trees aroundGreenacres were up on the old Cynthy Allen place. While the house hadburned down the year before, still Cynthy's fruit trees were famous allover Gilead and Mr. Robbins had bought up the crop in advance from her. AsCynthy said rather pathetically when the money was placed in her hand:

"Land, Jerry, I never thought those old fruit trees would bring me awindfall just when I needed it most for taxes and such like. "

It was only about a mile and a half to Cynthy's place from the crossroads, but Shad had taken Princess down to Nantic after grain, and Kit had noinclination to carry several pecks of crabapples in a sack along a dustyroad. Doris and Helen were out with Madame Ormond on a wood hike, and Jeanand her mother had been invited by Miss Emery to afternoon tea at hertent, so that Kit was left to her own devices. 

She stood on the veranda irresolutely, a couple of grain sacks thrown overher shoulder, and suddenly the sparkle of the river through the trees inthe distance caught her eye. Certainly, that was the answer. She had nothad a chance the whole summer to go out in the boat and bask in idleness. Always before this, Billie and she had chummed together through the summermonths, and she knew Little River all the way from the Fort Ned Falls atthe crossroads to where it slipped away in a shallow stream to the upperhills. 

There were several old rowboats lying bottom side up on the shore abovethe falls. Kit selected the newest of the lot, a slender green boat thatBillie had lately acquired, although she had never tried rowing anythingbut a flat-bottomed boat. It was the very first time also that she hadbeen out in a boat alone, but this fact never daunted Kit. She rowed upthe river with a firm level stroke, thoroughly enjoying herself and thenovelty of solitude. When she passed the island, Stanley was down on thelittle stretch of beach cleaning a mess of fish for supper. She sent him ahail across the water, and he held up a string of pickerel invitingly. There had been a thunder-storm and a quick midsummer rain the early partof the afternoon, and the campers had been quick to take advantage of thefishing. 

"I'll stop for them on my way back, " Kit called. "Just going up aftercrabapples at the Allen place. " She had swerved the boat towards the bankon the opposite side of the island, without looking behind her, whensuddenly Stanley sprang to his feet, and shouted across the water:

"To the left, Kit--hard to the left, do you hear!"

Instead of obeying without question, Kit turned her head to see what onearth he was warning her against, and before she could stop herself therowboat was caught in an eddy that formed a miniature maelstrom at thispoint, from a large sunken tree that fell nearly to midstream from theshore. The frail rowboat overturned like a crumpled leaf. Kit wasbareheaded and it seemed to Stanley as long as he lived he would neverforget the sight of her upturned face, as it slipped down into the dark, swirling water. She did not cry out, or even seem to make an attempt toswim, it all happened so suddenly. There was only the horrible, warmsilence of the drowsy, midsummer landscape, and the dancing, pitchingrowboat, twirling around and around in circles. 

It seemed an hour to him before he had plunged into the river, and swamacross to the spot where she had disappeared. The gripping horror was thatshe hadn't come up at all. Even before he reached the spot where he hadseen her go under, Stanley dove and swam under water with his eyes open. The river bottom was a mass of swaying vegetation and gnarled, sunkenroots of old trees. It seemed for the moment like outreaching fingersclutching upward. He could see the black trunk of the tree, but there wasno sign of Kit until he was fairly upon her, and then he found her, herdress and hair held fast on the bare branches. 

Billie had been in the tent, getting the potatoes on for dinner, andotherwise performing his duties as assistant camp cook. He had heardStanley's voice calling to some one, but had not taken the trouble to lookout until he failed to find a favorite pot on its accustomed hook. Sticking his head out through the tent flap, he called down to the beach:

"Say, Stan, where's the granite pot with the long handle?" He listened foran answer but none came, and after a second call he started toinvestigate. The sudden complete disappearance of Stanley mystified him. Their boat lay in its accustomed place on the shore with the oars besideit, and there were the fish beside the cleaning board just as he had leftthem a moment ago. 

"Well, I'll be jiggered, " muttered Billie when there came a cry across theriver--Stanley calling for help. 

Billie could just see him swimming with one long overhand stroke, andholding up something on his other shoulder, but following scout law, hestopped not to meditate, but pushed the boat off to the rescue. 

There was no sign of life, at least to Billie's fear-struck eyes, in thelimp, dripping figure which Stanley laid so tenderly in the bottom of theboat. 

"Quit shaking like that, Bill, " he ordered in husky sternness. "You row tothe island as fast as you can. "

On the way across he knelt beside her, applying first-aid methods, whileBillie rowed blindly, trying to choke back the dry sobs that would rise inhis throat, and the hot, boyish tears that blinded him every time helooked at Kit's face, and thought of the Mother Bird. It did not seem asif it could possibly be Kit, his dauntless, self-reliant pal, lying thereso white and still. When they reached the shore of the island, Stanleycarried her in his arms to his own cot. 

"Hadn't I better go for help?" Billie asked. 

"There isn't time, " Stanley answered, shortly. "Warm those blankets, getme the bottle of aromatic spirits of ammonia, and unlace her boots. "

All the time he was talking, he worked over Kit as swiftly and tenderly asany nurse, but it seemed hours to Billie before there came at last ahalf-sobbing sigh from her lips, as the agonized lungs caught their firstbreath of air, and she opened her eyes. 

Neither Stanley nor Billie spoke as she stared from one to the other inslow surprise, taking in the interior of the tent, and Stanley's drippingclothing, and then she said, the most comical thing at such a time:

"Billie, did I lose the crabapples, or haven't I gotten them yet?"

"So that's what you were after, " Billie cried wrathfully, "poking up theriver by yourself in that beastly little boat that turns over if you lookat it, and you can swim about as well as a tree-toad. If it hadn't beenfor Stan here, you'd be absolutely drowned dead by now. "

The color stole back into Kit's face. Perhaps if he had sympathized withher, she might have broken down, but as it was, she looked up intoStanley's eyes almost appealingly. 

"I'm awfully sorry, " she began, but Stanley stopped her with a laugh, ashe rolled her up tighter in another blanket. 

"I'm the doctor here, now, " he said, "and you'll have to mind. I guess ifI carry you, we can get you home somehow. The sooner you're in bed, thebetter. "

Mrs. Robbins and the girls were just coming along the road when theybeheld the startling procession coming up from the river bank, Stanleycarrying the blanketed figure and Billie bringing up the rear. Not thebuoyant, carefree Billie they were accustomed to see, a dejected, ratherlimp-looking figure, with his eyes still full of horror. 

"Why, mother, " Jean exclaimed, "some one's been hurt. " But it seemed asthough by some mysterious telepathy of love the news had already flashedon Mrs. Robbins' mind, and she hurried down the road to meet them. 

"She's all right, " called Stanley, cheerily. "Just took a dip in theriver, Mrs. Robbins. If you'll go ahead, please, and get a bed ready, I'llbring her up. "

Kit's eyes were closed. He had told her to put her arms around his neck sothat he could carry her easier up the hill. Just as they got to theveranda steps he said, under his breath:

"Are you all right, Kit?"

She nodded her head slowly, and opened her eyes. 

"Thank you for getting me out, " she whispered, with a shyness absolutelynew to the Kathleen of yore. "You don't know how I felt when I foundmyself caught down there, and couldn't get away. I thought that was justall. "

"Bring her up-stairs, Stanley, " called Jean. "Mother's telephoning to Dr. Gallup, but I suppose the danger's all past now. Kit, you big goose, whatdid you ever go in that boat alone for? The minute you're left alone, you're always up to something. Just like the day when she had you lockedup in the corn-crib, Stanley. "

Stanley smiled, a curious reminiscent smile, as he laid his burden downon the white bed by the window. 

Probably only Kit heard his answer, for Jean had sped after hot gingertea, and Helen and Doris were filling hot-water bottles, but Kit heard andsmiled as he said:

"God bless the corn-crib. "

CHAPTER XXIX

KIT GIVES HER BLESSING

Probably the next three days were the longest Kit had ever spent in herlife. Under Dr. Gallup's orders, she remained in bed to get over the shockof her immersion. 

"When I don't feel shocked a bit, " she expostulated. "I don't see why Ican't sit in a chair down on the veranda. "

"Yes, you just want to pose as an interesting invalid, " Jean laughed. Shelaid a rose-pink negligée jacket on the foot of the bed, with a littlewhite lace boudoir cap, caught here and there with pink satin rosebuds. "Mother just took these out of the treasures of the past for you to dressup in, and Cousin Roxy sent down a stack of books for you to read. Stanleyand Billie call about six times a day to inquire after you, and MadameOrmond has offered to come and sing for you. Ralph told us he heard shegets a thousand dollars a night in New York, so you can see how honoredyou are, Kit. "

"Jean, look at me, " said Kit suddenly. "Will you tell me something, honestand true?"

"I think mother's calling. " Jean's voice was rather hurried, as shestarted for the door. 

"No, she isn't any such thing. I want to know if you and Ralph areengaged. I don't see why you should try to keep it a secret when everybodythinks you are anyway. And a wedding in the family would be so exciting. "

But Jean shook her head, coloring quickly, and hurried down-stairs, withonly a laugh for an answer. Kit stared out of the window, ratherresentfully. She would be sixteen in November, and Jean was past eighteen. Eighteen loomed ahead of her as a year of discretion, a time when younaturally came into your heritage of mature reason and common sense. Sheremembered once the Dean remarking that the human brain did not reach itsfull development until eighteen, and how at the time she resented it, feeling absolutely sure at fifteen there was nothing under the sun shecould not understand fully. 

But the tumble in the river and peril to her life had left her completelystranded, as it were, upon an unknown shore of indecision. Evidently itwas just what Billie had called it, a fool stunt for her to try and row upthat river alone. Kit had always gone rather jauntily on her way doing asshe thought best with an unshakable confidence that nothing could happento her. Now she suddenly faced life with a new respect for the unexpected. Snags and sunken trees in the way of intrepid voyagers were evidentlyfacts which one had to guard against. 

Another thing, there was a very uncomfortable sensation around Kit's crownof glory, for her enemy had heaped coals of fire on her head, and returnedgood for evil in such an overwhelming measure, she never could repay him. Surely twenty-four hours had made an enormous difference in Kit's outlookon life, for she considered these things instead of the pink negligée onthe foot of the bed. 

The afternoon of the third day she was allowed to sit down on the verandain a large willow armchair. Helen and Doris hovered over her quite as ifshe had been the heroine of some romantic adventure, and nearly all thetent colonists visited her in relays. Billie came up last of all, andbrought her a live walking-stick on a spray of sassafras, as a specialtoken, but Stanley did not appear. 

"He's gone off up in the hills, " Billie told her, "chasing some kind of anew moth. You'd be awfully dead by now, Kit, if he hadn't happened to seeyou go down, because I was in the tent and didn't know anything about it. But it was just like him to dash after you, and pull you out. He did thatone day in Washington last winter, and saved a little darky from being rundown by a fire engine. I told him he was a regular emergency doctor. Iwish I could be like he is; I mean right on the job when there's any realdanger. "

Kit leaned her chin reflectively on her hand. 

"Heroes are such uncomfortable people in everyday life, Billie, " shesaid. "Everybody, even Dad and mother, keep telling me how everlastinglygrateful I must be to him for saving my life. I don't see what I can doexcept thank him, and I have done that. "

"Treat him decently, " Billie suggested, encouragingly. "Even if you don'tlike him, hide it. "

"Oh, I like him well enough, " Kit answered, "only he's never seemed likeRalph, and Honey, and you. I guess I've always resented every one thinkinghe was so wonderful. It was as though he had had a sort of sweet revengeon me for taking him for a berry hooker. "

She stopped as Ralph and Jean came slowly up the drive together. Jean'sarms were filled with early goldenrod, and she had some woodbine leavesfastened in a close fillet crown about her smooth dark hair. Ralph came upthe veranda steps and seated himself on a pile of straw mats beside thewillow chair. 

"We've just decided, " he announced, "and Jean says I may tell you all. It's going to happen in September, so she can go west with me. How do youlike your new brother, Kit?"

"I approve, " answered Kit, solemnly. "You know I've always liked you, Ralph, and I hereby bestow the hand of Jean upon you with all myblessings. Are you going to let her keep on painting?"

"She can do anything she likes, " Ralph promised. "And if she can find anymore beautiful scenery than we have in Saskatchewan and throughoutNorthwest Canada, then I'll live and die right here in Gilead. "

If it had been any one but Ralph MacRae, Mrs. Robbins said, the familywould never have given its united consent to Jean's marriage, but eversince that first summer when he had arrived at Greenacres as their unknownlandlord, Ralph had been accepted as one of the family circle. 

Piney and Honey were delighted over this new bond between the twofamilies. 

"We will be all cousins by marriage now, " Piney said, "and if you girlsdon't let me be a bridesmaid, too, I'll never pass your portals again. "

CHAPTER XXX

FACING REALITY

The wedding was set for the twentieth of September, and the last of thetent colony departed two weeks previously. The boys had gone first of all, and then the art students. The night before they left there had been amoonlight lawn party up at Greenacres, with dancing in a pavilion of youngwillows built by the boys. Kit declared she had never imagined anything soeasy and so striking. With a good floor laid for dancing, they had erecteda framework and then tied the willow trees to this on the four sides ofthe pavilion. Crisscrossing overhead were rows of Japanese lanterns. OldCady Graves paced up and down playing his violin, as usual, and callingoff for the quadrille, in his high pitched rhythmic cadence. 

But the biggest surprise of all came when Bryan Ormond, who had stirredthe musical circles of two worlds, took his place on the little countryplatform and played for them on his 'cello. The Judge and Mrs. Ellisenjoyed it just as the Robbinses did. It was a novel treat to hear thestrains of Lizst and Chopin sounding in the purple silences of those oldcountry hills, but when he had finished, Cynthy leaned over to Kit, whosat next to her and who was in an uplifted rhapsody of meditation. 

"Do you suppose he'd be willing to play 'Home, Sweet Home' on that thingif we asked him to? 'Tain't nothin' but a big fiddle, is it?"

Before Kit could answer, Madame Ormond herself stood facing them on theveranda steps under the big yellow porch light, and instead of anygrand-opera aria, her golden voice floated out for them, singing Cynthy'sfavorite as surely it had never been sung before in Gilead. 

After it was all over and the girls were in their own rooms, Kit steppedto Helen's door for an extra match, and found her standing before themirror, a long green velvet portière draped around her shoulders, and astrip of gold braid banding her hair. She turned around with quickembarrassment, and exclaimed breathlessly:

"Oh, Kit, please don't tell. I was just trying to look like Isolde. MadameOrmond has a photograph of herself dressed like this, and I was wonderingif I ever would sing it. "

Kit wrapped her arms around her as she stood behind her, almost as if shewould have protected her from any dizzy flights of fancy. 

"You look more like Brunehilda the Golden-haired, " she said. "There's onething about us Robbinses, nobody can say that we lack courage in ourambitions. "

"Oh, but Kit, Madame Ormond says that she is sure my voice will developinto something worth while. "

"Well, let's hope so, anyhow, " Kit answered, practically, but with anaffectionate squeeze that took away any offense from her words. "You knowthat old favorite saying of Cousin Roxy's, 'It's better to aim at thestars and hit the bar post, than to aim at the bar post and hit theground. '"

Helen turned around, an anxious look in her blue eyes. 

"You're always so matter-of-fact, Kit. You see, I am fourteen now, andit's about time I was having some kind of an ambition. Isn't thereanything at all that you long to do more than anything in the world?Something that you've thought and thought about for months and monthsuntil it became like a light ahead of you?"

Kit sat down on the edge of the bed and thought a minute. Life had neverpresented itself to her in vistas. She lived each day as it came with anunconquerable optimism, such as no one else except Cousin Roxy seemed topossess in the family. 

"Don't worry, Kit, " Mrs. Ellis was wont to say to her, cheerily. "Goodworks and an abiding faith yoked up with a sense of humor will carry anyone to the golden gates. "

And perhaps secretly Kit had always considered personal ambition a littleprivate form of selfishness. As she ransacked her mind now, trying to findher own ambition and get it safely on a pin for examination like one ofBillie's specimens, only her old-time love of forestry answered her. 

"I guess I'm a kind of a gypsy, Helenita, " she sighed regretfully, "'causethere isn't anything I really want to do so much as travel and hit newtrails. I don't just want to start out like Jean is doing and rush overthree thousand just to settle down at the other end for ever and ever. I'dwant to keep on going. It's such a comfort to know that the world is roundafter all, and you can't topple off the end. "

Helen regarded her doubtfully. 

"You know, I heard Stanley talking almost exactly like that. He said thatafter his work was finished in France he would just want to travel on andon into all the beautiful, lonesome places of the world, where there hadnever been any war. "

Kit stared at her in startled amazement. 

"In France?" she repeated. "Billie never said a word about it. "

"I heard him telling father he was leaving this fall with one of theengineering units from Virginia on reconstruction work in the forests. Why, Kit?"

"Nothing, " answered Kit, shortly. "Take off that golden crown and get tobed. It's after midnight. You'll probably dream of being a grand-operaqueen, and wake up in the morning hearing Doris calling the guinea hens. "

Two days later the Ormonds left. The little camp over on the island hadbroken up the day before. Billie had gone up to his grandfather's to spenda few days before returning to school, but Stanley remained over atGreenacres as Mr. Robbins' guest. 

With a steady income assured him by the Dean's gift, Mr. Robbins wasplanning to develop the farm along the intensive lines he had alwayslonged for. The girls on their side were fairly gloating over their ownharvesting from the summer labors. Sally had made her own profit out ofthe little store, and the tent colony had yielded dividends sufficient togive each of the older girls a golden nest egg. Most of Jean's was goinginto her trousseau, but Kit took hers on the quiet and dropped it into hermother's lap as Mrs. Robbins sat reading in her favorite chair on theveranda. 

"But, Kit, I don't need it now, dear, " protested her mother. "Why don'tyou buy yourself some things that you've been wanting? I don't mean usefulthings. I mean 'white hyacinths' to feed the soul. "

Kit sat down on the top step, hugging her knees and rocking to and frocontentedly. 

"You know I can't think of a single 'white hyacinth' that I'm hungeringfor, " she said. "I suppose I've got to go back to high school next week, and I don't want to very much at all. I can't bear general educations, mother darling. I wish there was a school I could go into and only studywhat I love best. Mountain climbing, island hunting and forestry. I wantto be an explorer. "

"There is such a school, " her mother smiled down at her, "presided overby old dean experience, and you go to it all your life. "

"But I mean something tangible, " Kit explained. "It seems such a terriblewaste of time just going to high school, and just filling up on a lot ofthings you're not particularly interested in. " Mrs. Robbins looked down atthe eager, troubled face, and there was a note of understanding sympathyin her voice, as she said:

"You're my only restless spirit, Kit, always reaching out after themighty, real things of life, where Jean and Helen follow hopes and dreams. Realities are very hard to face sometimes even when we find them. "

"Yes, I know, " Kit said, shortly. "Stanley's going to France, and Ihaven't even found out yet how to thank him properly for fishing me out ofthe river and saving my life. I wish Billie had done it. "

She looked off at the tree-tops that showed as a patch of green in theriver where the island lay, with a deep perplexity in her eyes. Up-stairsthere came the steady whirr of a sewing machine, where little MissDusenberry, the village dressmaker, was already deep in the mysteries ofJean's trousseau. In the living-room, Helen was practicing her vocallesson, trying to follow the rules Mr. Ormond had given her, and Doris wascompletely hidden in the big, brown camp hammock under the maples readinga favorite book. It seemed as though all the members of the family butherself were following their natural bent, and she couldn't even see anatural bent ahead of her, nothing but a long winding trail that called. 

She gave a quick sigh, and put her head down on her mother's knee, almostas Doris might have done. 

"I'll go through with it, motherie, " she said, "high school and anythingelse you say, if only some day I can just drop everything and blaze my ownpaths. "

"Remember, you don't blaze them for yourself, but for those who followafter. " Mrs. Robbins put her arms down around the young shoulders thatalready longed to carry burdens. "Stanley was telling us last night ofthe death of General Maude at Bagdad. To me he is one of the great heroesof the war, and the word he left to his soldiers seems like a battle cryof inspiration to the race. It was just this, 'Carry on. ' It's what wecan't avoid, Kit, no matter whether we find ourselves blazing new trailsthrough the wilderness or trying to find the way to happiness right herein little old Gilead. You have to 'carry on' for those who come after. "

Jean called to her for some advice immediately, and she hurried up-stairs. Kit sat cogitating over what she had said, just as Stanley came throughthe orchard with a huge basket on his shoulder of early sweet apples, thefirst fruits of the Greenacre harvest. He set them down beside her withthe old whimsical laugh in his eyes. 

"If you'll be a real good girl, Kit, and never call me a berry hookeragain, you can have first pick of these Shepherd Sweetings. "

He was only joking, but there was no answering glint of humor in Kit'seyes. Very seriously, she stretched out her hand to him. 

"I'll never, never even think of you as a berry hooker again, Stanley, "she promised. "I didn't know you were going away off over there untilBillie told me, and I'm willing now to say I am sorry for that first day, and Shad locking you up, and Mr. Hicks coming to arrest you. "

"I do believe you're trying to forgive me, Kit, " Stanley said, teasingly. "Is this a truce, or a lasting peace? You see, I want to know for sure, because I haven't any sisters, or mother, or any one who cares a rapwhether I go or stay, and you're the first person who's even mentioned it. I guess that must be why I like to stay around Greenacres so well. I neverknew anything about the fun of being in a family before until you all tookme in here. There ought to be a tablet on that old corn-crib, 'Sacred tothe memory of the day I found a family. '"

"It's peace, " Kit answered, firmly, giving him her hand. "Here, you canhave my watch strap as security. That's the way we always do. "

She slipped the little silver watch out, and handed him the strap. 

"If it won't fit your wrist, just carry it. I'd like to think something ofmine was really over there, and I've always loved that. Jean cut it out ofleather for me, and made it; even the little copper slides she hammeredout herself. "

Stanley was very busy detaching the charm he wore on his fob. It was alittle amulet-shaped oblong of dull silver with a tree on it in relief. 

"Like playing forfeits, isn't it?" he said, rather boyishly. "This is allI've got. It's an Indian charm I had given me down in New Mexico, but thetree is alive and growing. It isn't a sunken snag. "

Kit held it up in delight. It was exactly to her liking, and she saidlaughingly the little, childish formula of party days:

 "Heavy, heavy hangs over your head, What shall the owner do to redeem it?"

"Are you going to eat all those apples, Kit?" asked Doris, her curlyrumpled hair showing over the top of the hammock, and Kit tucked away herservice charm against the day of its redemption.