now how the child
was to be named after his aunt, Betsy Trotwood, and she never really
forgave him for turning out to be a boy instead of a girl. Mother has told
me how she named me Jerrold, Jr., and anyway I've done the best I could to
live up to it. Billie says I'm an awfully good pal, and he'd much rather
talk to me than any of the boys he knows at school, because I understand
what he's driving at."

"But don't you think your mother will need you here? Jean will be going
back to Boston in October to her art class, and Helen is only fourteen. I
don't think it would matter, if you only visited them for a couple of
months, but supposing Uncle Cassius took a fancy to you." Mr. Robbins'
eyes twinkled as he watched Kit's grave face.

"You mean," she said, "supposing he decided that my brain measured up to
his expectations of Jerry, Jr., and they wanted me to stay all winter?
Couldn't I go to school there, just as well as here? You know, Dad, I'm
really not a child any longer. Don't you realize that I'm fifteen and a
half?"

"Reaching years of discretion, aren't you, girlie?" smiled her father. "I
suppose it would do you a lot of good in a broadening way to go through a
new experience like this."

"I'm not thinking about that," Kit sent back an understanding gleam of
fun, "but I'm perfectly positive that it would do Uncle Cassius and Aunt
Daphne an awful lot of good."

"Then we must not deprive them of the opportunity. Do you think so,
Hiram?"

Hiram stuck his head through the clambering vines and clustering leaves,
like a tousled freckle-faced New England faun.

"Couldn't do no harm either way, s'far as I can see," he said,
judiciously. "And if the old folks need any sort of discipline, I'd
certainly start Miss Kit after them."

CHAPTER V

SHEPHERD SWEETINGS

That was the end of August. Cousin Roxy heartily approved of the plan, and
said no doubt the fire down at Greenacres had been a direct dispensation
of Providence.

"You were all of you settling down into a rut before it happened, and the
old place needed a thorough going over anyhow. You know you couldn't have
afforded it, Jerry, if it hadn't been for the fire insurance money coming
in so handy like. Now, you'll all move back the first part of the winter,
with the new furnace set up, and no cracks for the wind to whistle
through. Jean will be started off on her path of glory, and I don't think
Kit's a mite too young to be fluttering her wings a