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 Daphne
stepped out on the broad veranda. Every evening about nine-thirty
passers-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 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 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 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 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 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 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 sunshine," answered
Danny, gallantly.--"If you leave it to Sandy to find the shore, he'll take
you the quickest way."