Part 6 (1/2)
”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 sh.o.r.e. I never saw such abrupt little chasms in my life. Uncle Ca.s.sius 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 Ca.s.sius'
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 Ca.s.sius 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 Daphne stepped out on the broad veranda. Every evening about nine-thirty pa.s.sers-by might have seen the flickering glow of the Dean's good-night cigar. He was not an habitual smoker, but the evening cigar was a sort of nocturnal ceremonial. It gave him an excuse to step out into the fragrant darkness of the garden walk for a quiet little stroll before bedtime, and usually Miss Daphne would try to join him.
So to-night they paced together, discussing the girl with the red curls who had come to them from far-off New England, in lieu of the boy they had sent for.
”There's no reason,” remarked the Dean, reflectively, ”why the child should not have a pleasant visit, since she is here. I have had a long conversation with her, and while I would not say that she was exceptionally--er----”
”Bright,” suggested Daphne.
”I should like to call it intellectual,” the Dean said kindly, ”she is keenly impressionable and self-reliant. I think I may be able to interest her, at least in a simplified course of study. I have always believed that boys were more amenable to routine discipline in education than girls, but we shall see.”
Miss Daphne's eyes, if he could only have seen them, held a twinkle of mirth, and her smile was a little more p.r.o.nounced 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 was early, but back on the farm the girls usually rose about five. There did not seem to be any one stirring yet, so she dressed quietly, and found her way down-stairs. The Dean kept a cook, gardener and second girl. Kit heard Delia, the latter, singing in the dining-room and went out at once to make friends with her.
”Is it very far down the bluff to the sh.o.r.e, 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 roundabout way through the garden, and the little path, behind the tool shed, and you just follow it until you can't go any farther, and there's the bluff. I haven't been down myself, but Dan says there's a little path you take to the sh.o.r.e 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 plump rosy-cheeked old Irishman, his face wrinkled like a winter pippin, and he lifted his cap at her approach with a smile of frank curiosity and approval.
A half-grown black retriever came bounding to meet her, his nose and forepaws tipped with white.
”That's a welcome he's giving you you wouldn't have had if you'd been a boy, Miss,” Danny said, shrewdly. ”I'm glad to meet you, and hope you'll like it here.”
Kit was stroking Sandy's silky curls. His real name he told her was Lysander. Anything that the Dean had the naming of received the benediction of ancient Greece, but Sandy, in his puppyhood, had managed to acquire a happy diminutive.
”I don't see,” Kit said, laughingly, ”why you dreaded a boy coming. I know some awfully nice boys back home, and there's one specially”--she paused just a moment, before she added--”named Billie. He's kind of related to us, because his grandfather married Cousin Roxy, and she's my father's cousin. 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 the Dean expected to see, but perhaps he'll get used to me. Do you think he will?”
”Sure, it's like asking me could he get used to the suns.h.i.+ne,” answered Danny, gallantly.--”If you leave it to Sandy to find the sh.o.r.e, he'll take you the quickest way.”
CHAPTER IX
ALL SANDY'S FAULT