That was quite like Jean, Kit thought, glancing over the rest of the letter hurriedly.  Cousin Roxy had given a community social, and Mr. Howard had interested Jean considerably, especially as he told her he was bound for France the first of November.  Jean was always so easily impressed just the first few times she met a person.  It took Kit a long time to really admit a stranger to her circle of selected ones, and she had never quite forgiven Stanley Howard for trespassing in the berry patch, even though it had been in the cause of science.  Besides, the last year, Jean had seemed to grow somewhat aloof from the others.  Perhaps it had been her trips away from home, or her ambition.  Kit could not precisely define the change, but it was there, and she felt that Jean troubled herself altogether too much over things unseen.  One of Kit’s favorite mottoes was from Stevenson: 

    “In things immaterial, Davey, be soople.”

Helen’s letter was all about the opening of school, and Doris’ asked questions about Delphi.

“When you write, do tell us about the things that happen there, and not just what you think about it.  I don’t like descriptions in books, I like the talk part.  You know what I mean, Kit.  Has Uncle Cassius got any pets at all?”

Kit laughed over this.  Bless her heart, if she could only have seen Uncle Cassius’ pets.  His stuffed mummy and horned toads, the chimpanzee skull beaming at one from a dark corner, and the Cambodian war mask from another.  It seemed as if every time she looked around the house she found something new, and with each curio there went a story.  Oddly enough, the Dean thawed more under Kit’s persuasion when she begged for the stories than at any other time.  After each meal, it was his custom to take what he called “four draws” in his study.  Kit found at these times that he was in his best humor.  Relaxed and thoughtful, he would lean back in the deep Morris chair between the flat-topped desk and the fireplace, and smoke leisurely.  Even his pipe had come from Persia, its amber stem very slender and beautifully curved, its bowl a marvel of carving.

Kit sat pondering over her father’s and mother’s letters, after putting those of the two girls away.  School would begin in another week, and she was to enter the sophomore preparatory, which corresponded to the second year in high school back home.  And yet, after what her father had written, she felt that she was not giving the Dean a square deal.

The odor of tobacco came through the library window, and acting on the spur of the moment, she stepped around the corner of the veranda and perched herself on the window sill.

“Are you busy, Uncle Cassius?” Anybody who was well acquainted with Kit would have suspected the gentleness of her tone, but the Dean looked over at her with a little pleased smile.  Her coming was almost an answer to his reverie.

“Not at all, my dear, not at all.  In fact, I was just thinking of you.  I am inclined to think after all that we will begin with the geological periods.  I wish you to get your data assembled in your mind on prehistoric peoples before we take up any definite groups.”