Kit jammed her velvet "tam" down over one ear adventurously, and started
towards the gateway, finishing the quotation as she went:

"--crowned him thrice king!"




CHAPTER IV

THE ORACLE AT DELPHI


It appeared that Uncle Cassius lived strictly up to tradition, for it had
been over fifteen years since any word had been received from the oracle
at Delphi, as the girls dubbed him from the very first. The letter which
broke the long silence was read aloud several times that day, the girls
especially searching between its lines for any hidden sentiment or hint of
family affection.

"I don't see why on earth he tries to be generous when he doesn't know
how," Helen said, musingly. "I wonder if he's got bushy gray hair and
whiskers, like somebody we were studying about yesterday. Who was that,
Kit?"

Kit glanced up from Uncle Cassius' letter with a preoccupied expression.

"Whiskers?" she repeated. "Why, I don't know; Walt Whitman, Ibsen,
Longfellow, Joaquin Miller? Tolstoi had long straggly ones, didn't he?"