"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 think of powdered hair and lovely, flouncy hoop skirts. I'm going to practice it when I get home."

It was not until they took the through train from Washington for New London that Kit relaxed. It was the last home stretch, and now that the end of the journey drew near, the full importance of the Dean's visit at such a time grew upon her. The little hint she had given about the guest chamber being ready was the only thing that would have made the family suspect she was bringing any guests with her. Not a word had been sent to notify them of their arrival, but the last two hours in Washington had been given up to the purchasing of gifts, and Kit had looked positively dazed 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 little cash had figured in the purchasing of home gifts at Greenacres the past two years.

CHAPTER XXIII

THE DEAN SEES THE STAR

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

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

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

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

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

"You don't say so," Mr. Briggs smiled at him, curiously. "Well, you won't find many things changed around here in only that time. Want me to 'phone over 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 'twas going to stay in for a spell of snow now, though. Some boxes came up from New York yesterday for your folks, but I couldn't tell what was in 'em off-hand. Felt sort of hefty, though."

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

Perhaps the Dean was wondering the same thing as they drove up through the old hill road towards Gilead. One by one he recognized the old familiar landmarks and farms as they pa.s.sed them, but Miss Daphne was far too engrossed in watching the Dean's own face to care for familiar spots on the landscape.

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

"Howdy, Kit. Home for Christmas?" he called cheerily, then taking a good look at the other occupants of the old station surrey, "Well, Ca.s.s Peabody, who in creation ever thought of seeing you around these parts again."

The Dean leaned forward, peering over the tops of his gla.s.ses with almost the smile of a boy.

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

Mr. Peckham insisted on their waiting a moment while he hurried up to the house to call Elvira. Kit sat back in the carriage enjoying the reunion.

Miss Daphne had gone to school years before at the Select Academy for Young Ladies, over in Willimantic, with Elvira Evans long before she became Mrs. Peckham. Kit felt, listening to the four of them go over dear old reminiscences, that it was as though she stood at the curtain of the past, on tiptoe at a peep-hole.

The early twilight had already begun to set in by the time they reached the 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 pines along the river there came the murmur of the waterfall. There was none of the family in sight when they turned up the drive, but suddenly Kit's eager eyes saw a familiar figure out by the chicken coops, and leaning forward she gave a shrill co-oee!

Doris' head went up like a startled deer. She dropped the pan of feed to the ground and fairly flew to meet them, and then before Kit could even detach 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 with her father, but Kit never forgot the feeling of relief that came to her when she finally found herself before the open fire in the big living-room with all of the family around her, and the full satisfaction of having brought home the Peabodys after all these years of estrangement.

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

"Cousin Roxy invited us all over to their place," Helen said, as she dove into a lower bureau drawer, filled with carefully wrapped parcels, "but mother wanted to have a home Christmas, because the house does seem new to us 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 guest chamber ready. I didn't know myself that Uncle Ca.s.sius and Aunt Daphne were coming until the last minute." Kit sat perched on the bed in a pink kimono, brushing her hair. And just at this moment she caught Jean's eye in the mirror, such an amused, knowing eye that Kit caught the full significance of that glance immediately, and laughed.

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

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

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

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

"I know it," Kit rejoined, "but if it's anything to you all, I'd be willing to bet anything that right this minute Uncle Ca.s.sius is springing some glad tidings down-stairs that will turn the tide of fortune."

"Oh, Kit," begged Doris, "don't you and Jean talk like that, because I can'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 room provokingly, with many mysterious gestures.

"Supposing, curious damsel, that I were to speak unto you in the mystic language 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 upon the revelation, and that the sacred circle had given up its secret at the punch of your sister's delicate thumb. You see, even when I tell you, you don't understand, so you'll just have to wait until Uncle Ca.s.sius himself tells the story."

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

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

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

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

"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 New Years, Miss Daphne declared, for her part, she would not have gone back to Delphi until she had at least seen the arbutus bloom again in April. After Christmas at Greenacres, Cousin Roxy insisted on both her and the Dean visiting at Elmhurst, but before they left, the Dean had unfolded his plan.

"Daphne is well provided for in case of my pa.s.sing over," he said, genially and unexpectedly, the last evening he was with them, "and I have been 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 opposite side of the round library table, nearest the fire. "So I've taken the liberty, Jerry, of making over to you now what you would have had inevitably some day. Don't say anything, please. It's a personal indulgence on my part. I want to see, while I am alive, just exactly how much happiness it will bring you and yours. It is all well invested, but you may do as you like with it. I would suggest that you would live on the income, and stop worrying."