"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 Daphne corrected, and right there and then Kit experienced her first pang of homesickness. Would she really be away from the home nest until next June?

Even with this novelty of recreation, backed by wealth, she felt suddenly as 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's shoulder. The two younger girls were at school, and a little puzzled frown drew Jean's straight dark brows together.

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

But Mrs. Bobbins looked dubious.

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

Jean stopped polishing lamp chimneys and gazed out of the kitchen window towards the far-reaching fields, where none but the crows could find a living now. She was only able to run up from New York once a month, since she had taken a position of junior instructor at the Academy, and yet each time she found herself turning with a sigh of relief and safety from the city 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's foolish to blind ourselves to all that it will do for us. I never try to deceive myself one bit, and I shall always miss the little luxuries and greater comforts of life that we had back at the Cove, before your father's health broke down, especially now that you girls are growing up so 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 the forlorn hope that Uncle Ca.s.sius and Aunt Daphne may send her home with a shower of gold. It seems to me if they were really and truly the right kind of family people, and cared for you and father, that they couldn't rest until they had handed over a splendid, generous slice of their money right now when it would do the most good."

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

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

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

"Fiddlesticks," she said. "No girl of Kit's age knows what she wants two minutes of the time. She's doing good missionary work out there, and she must 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 old enough 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 what tones up the muscles of the spirit. From what I know about Ca.s.sius Cato Peabody, I should say that what he needed most was a trumpet call from the Lord to make him take an interest in the land of the living instead of mummies and buried cities."

So two letters went back to Kit, and in hers the Mother Bird could not resist slipping a hint that perhaps it would be a wise thing to ask the Dean about terminating her visit at Christmas time. But Jean added in hers:

"Mother's afraid you are homesick, or that they may be tired of you by this 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 next month, but we've had lots of wet weather, and Cousin Roxy says it would be horribly unhealthful to move in before the plaster has had a chance to thoroughly dry. Shad goes down every day with father, and they've kept the fire going in the furnace, so I suppose that will help some, but there isn't a particle of need for your coming back, except mother's dread that you 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 the eldest sister," she said, scornfully. "I know perfectly well that mother needs me when she is moving back into the new house, and I never expected to stay so long when I came, anyway."

She stopped short, meditating on just what this queer, choky feeling was that had swept over her. Helen and Jean always liked to take a new emotion and a.n.a.lyze it, but Kit rarely concerned herself with motives or causes.

And now she only knew that she would have given up everything, future hopes of the Dean's bestowing bequests broadcast in the robins' nest, and all the winter's fun at Hope College, just to be safely back home with all the dear familiar faces around her.

CHAPTER XVI

SHOPPING FOR SHAKESPEARE

It was Sat.u.r.day morning. She had been elected a member of the Portia Club, and even now rehearsals were under way for the first performance the second 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 account of her height and carriage. As Amy said:

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

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

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

"No, I want to be Shylock. I love character parts. I don't see why you have to pick out these little tame scenes when we could have Lear and Edgar and the Fool on the heath, or d.i.c.k the Third or Macbeth. I'd play any of those for you. We used to have plays back home just amongst us girls, 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 need atmosphere."

"Dear wayward, fearless sister," answered Amy, kindly, "what you haven't found out here is this. Thus far we can go and no farther. The faculty would 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 if the 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, of course, though we'd have tried the grave-diggers scene only we didn't have any 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. Kit glanced at the clock, and caught up her sweater and cap. It was quarter of ten, and she was due at Amy's at ten. As she ran down-stairs, she encountered the Dean, happily directing two expressmen carry a large box back 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 disturbed just now while I am unpacking them, as it takes a great deal of care and delicacy and you will ask too many questions, Kit, but if you will come in after lunch, I will explain the inscriptions to you."

"Oh, I'd love to, Uncle Ca.s.sius," 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, and at 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 blew cuttingly, and there was a flurry of first snowflakes in the air wavering about 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 been building a costume all the morning."

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

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