those
fortunate enough to have been born in the Robbins family, the girls had
opened their windows to the silent moonlit glory of the night, and sang in
chorus:

"Oh, come all ye faithful, joyful and triumphant,
Oh, come ye, oh, come ye to Bethlehem,
Come and behold Him, born the King of Angels,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Oh, come let us adore Him,
Christ the Lord."

The Dean knelt in prayer beside the Christmas tree.

CHAPTER XXIV

THE TENTS OF GREENACRES

If it had not been for the opening of Hope College the week after New
Years, Miss Daphne declared, for her part, she would not have gone back to
Delphi until she had at least seen the arbutus bloom again in April. After
Christmas at Greenacres, Cousin Roxy insisted on both her and the Dean
visiting at Elmhurst, but before they left, the Dean had unfolded his
plan.

"Daphne is well provided for in case of my passing over," he said,
genially and unexpectedly, the last evening he was with them, "and I have
been thinking a good deal lately over what Kit has well named the folly of
'dead men's shoes.'" He turned to where Mr. Robbins sat on the opposite
side of the round library table, nearest the fire. "So I've taken the
liberty, Jerry, of making over to you now what you would have had
inevitably some day. Don't say anything, please. It's a personal
indulgence on my part. I want to see, while I am alive, just exactly how
much happiness it will bring you and yours. It is all well invested, but
you may do as you like with it. I would suggest that you would live on the
income, and stop worrying."

And when both Mr. Robbins and the Mother Bird tried to expostulate, the
Dean only laughed at them, brushing their arguments aside.

"Why, if I were to turn over everything I own to the clan of Robbins, I
could hardly pay back all that Kit has done for me. I'm a new man, Jerry.
Sometimes I feel like a prehistoric toad just released from a clay-bank
and blinking in the sunlight. Not only has she taught me the joy of
living, but through her ingenuity she brought about one of the greatest
discoveries that has been made in years on ancient Egypt. I feel guilty in
taking any credit for it whatsoever, for while I was groping blindly after
the solution, she put her finger, as it were, on the whole source of the
trouble."

After they had returned west, and Jean had gone back to New York, Kit
found her o