"Oh, but mother, dear," Kit burst forth, eagerly. "Think what glorious fun it would be to train them, and make them understand how much more interesting you can make life if you only take the right point of view."
"Yes, but supposing what seemed to be the right point of view to you, Kit, was not the right point of view to them at all. Every one looks at life from his own angle."
"Carlota always said that, too," Jean put in. "I remember at our art class each student would see the subject from a different angle and sketch accordingly. Carlota said it was exactly like life, where each one gets his own perspective."
"But you can't get any perspective at all if you shut yourself up in the dark," Kit argued. She leaned her chin on both palms, elbows planted firmly on the table, as she prepared to influence the opinion of the family. "Now just listen to this, and don't all speak at once until I get through. You went away, Jean, down to New York, and then up to Boston, and though I say it as shouldn't, right to your face, you came back to the bosom of your family, very much better satisfied and pleasanter to live with. I think after you've stayed in one place too long you get, well—as Billie says, 'fed up' and wish to goodness you could get away somewhere. I haven't any art at all, or anything special that I could wave at you and demand 'expression' as Bab Crane calls it. What I need is something new to develop my special gifts and talents, and mother darling, if you would only consent to let me go for even two or three months, I will come back to you a perfect angel, besides doing Uncle Cassius and Aunt Daphne a pile of good, I know."
"It sounds right enough, dear," Mrs. Robbins said, her brown eyes full of amusement, "but we can't very well disguise you as a boy, and Uncle Cassius is not the kind of person to trifle with."
Kit thought this over seriously.
"Don't tell them until I've started," she suggested, "and be sure and mail the letter so it will get there after I do, and send me quick, so they won't have any chance to change their minds. Jean will be home until the middle of October, and you really and truly don't need me here at all. I'm sure there must have been a missionary concealed away in our family like a hidden spring, for I feel the zeal of conversion upon me. I long to descend on Delphi."
"Well, I don't know what to say, Kit. I'll have to talk it over with your father first. I wonder why Uncle Cassius thought we had a boy in the family, and why he wanted him specially."
"Maybe he thought a boy would be more interested in antiques. Are they Chinese porcelains and jewels, or just mummy things?"
"Mostly ruins, as I remember," laughed her mother. "When he was young, Uncle Cassius used to be sent away by the Geographical Society to explore buried cities in Chaldea and Egypt."