“Oh, but Dad, gee,” Kit burst out eagerly, “Think what a challenge it would be to 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. Everyone looks at life from his own angle.”
“Aldo always said that, too,” Jean put in. “Remember, the boy from Italy I met when I was in New York last winter? I remember at our art class each student would see the subject from a different angle and sketch accordingly. Aldo 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 her hands. “Now just listen to this, and don’t all speak at once until I get through. You went away, Jean, to New York, and though maybe I shouldn’t say this, you came back home very much better satisfied and pleasanter to live with. I think after you’ve stayed in one place too long you get fed up and wish there were some way to get away somewhere. I haven’t any special talent for art or anything like that, but I’d like to get away and see something different for a change. And Dad 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 Bart and Aunt Della oodles of good.”
“It sounds right enough, dear,” Mr. Craig said, his gray eyes full of amusement, “but we can’t very well disguise you as a boy, and Uncle Bart 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 here and you really and truly don’t need me here at all.”
“Well, I don’t know what to say, Kit. I’ll have to talk it over with your mother first. I wonder why Uncle Bart wanted Tommy 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 father. “When he was young, Uncle Bart used to be sent away by the Geographical Society to explore buried cities in Chaldea and Egypt.”