"Bless his heart, I wish I could coax him to start in again, right now,
and take me with him," Kit exclaimed, blithely. "Anyhow, I'm going to hope
that it will come right and I can go. I shall collect my Lares and Penates
and start packing. Can I borrow your steamer trunk, Jean? Just write a
charming letter, mother dear, sort of in the abstract, you know, thanking
him, and calling us 'the children' in the aggregate, so he can't detect
just what we are, then when I depart, you can wire them, 'Kit arrives such
and such a time.' They'll probably expect a Christopher, and once I land
there, and they realize the treasure you have sent them, they will forgive
me anything."

Uncle Cassius' letter was read over again carefully by Mr. Robbins. Kit
carried it out to the grape arbor, where he and Hiram were untangling and
training some vagrant vines to travel in the way they should go, up over
the trellis work. There was a round table here made of birchwood that just
fitted nicely into the octagonal arbor, encircled by birch seats. Leading
away from the arbor proper were two long pergolas, likewise built by
Hiram, of birchwood. The arbor had always been a favorite spot with the
girls, when Aunt Roxy had lived in the rambling old white homestead. Now
that it was their abiding place _pro tem._, they spent nearly all their
leisure time out there. There was always a breeze from the south that made
the arbor a port of call, and each one of its vine-framed openings was a
lookout over wide spaces of beauty. Cousin Roxy had once said that she had
made a point of using the arbor as a spot to "rest and invite her soul,"
for years. It had been to her like David's tower, with all its windows
open towards Jerusalem.

"I don't mind Hiram hearing," Kit said; "maybe he can suggest some way
out. Just read that letter over, Dad, very, very carefully, and see if
there isn't some way you can smuggle me out to Delphi, without hurting