“You know,” said Kit, “we lived right on the edge of Long Island Sound before we moved up to Connecticut, and ever since I was in rompers, I can remember going away somewhere to the seashore every summer, but I think your lake is ever so much more interesting than the ocean.  Somehow it seems to belong to one more.  I always felt with the ocean as if it just condescended to come over to my special beach, after it had rambled all over the world, and belonged to everybody.”

“But you have all the shells and the seaweed, and we haven’t,” demurred Anne.  “Before I ever went East, we had a couple of clam shells, just plain every-day old round clam shells, that had come from Cape May, and I used to think they were perfectly wonderful because they had belonged in the real ocean.”

After the rugged landscape of New England, Kit found this level land very attractive.  They passed through one suburb after another, with the beautiful Drive following the curving shore line out to Evanston.  Here she caught her first glimpse of the Northwestern University, its terra-cotta hued buildings showing picturesquely through the beautiful giant willows around the campus.

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

“It is ever so much pleasanter than living in the heart of the city,” she said, “and Rex has so many friends among the boys out here that it makes it pleasant for both of the children.  We used to live in North Evanston before Mr. Bellamy took the chair of modern history up at Delphi.  I wish that you were going to live here for Anne’s sake.”

“Well, that’s almost selfish, mother, because Delphi is a hundred times more fun than Evanston,” Anne declared, “and we’re sure to see a lot of each other, anyway, when school opens.  Kit’s promised to tell me all about her sisters and Greenacres.  It must be awfully queer to live up in the hills like that.”

“Queer?” repeated Kit, laughingly.  “It’s a joy to the soul and a discipline to the body, Cousin Roxy says.”

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

“She’s an angel in a gingham apron, we girls think,” she concluded, “and yet she can take off the gingham apron and stand up and address any kind of a meeting.  I just can’t tell you all that she’s been to us since we lived there.”