agles circled over Rome,
And Caesar's destiny----"

Jean laughed and pointed to a line of crows rising leisurely from a clump
of pine woods.

"What does it mean when the crows circle over Gilead?"

Kit jammed her velvet "tam" down over one ear adventurously, and started
towards the gateway, finishing the quotation as she went:

"--crowned him thrice king!"

CHAPTER IV

THE ORACLE AT DELPHI

It appeared that Uncle Cassius lived strictly up to tradition, for it had
been over fifteen years since any word had been received from the oracle
at Delphi, as the girls dubbed him from the very first. The letter which
broke the long silence was read aloud several times that day, the girls
especially searching between its lines for any hidden sentiment or hint of
family affection.

"I don't see why on earth he tries to be generous when he doesn't know
how," Helen said, musingly. "I wonder if he's got bushy gray hair and
whiskers, like somebody we were studying about yesterday. Who was that,
Kit?"

Kit glanced up from Uncle Cassius' letter with a preoccupied expression.

"Whiskers?" she repeated. "Why, I don't know; Walt Whitman, Ibsen,
Longfellow, Joaquin Miller? Tolstoi had long straggly ones, didn't he?"

"These were kind of bushy ones. I think it was Carlyle."

"Wait a minute while I read this thing over carefully again," Kit warned
them. "I think while we're alone we ought to discuss it freely. Mother
just took it as if it were a case of 'Which shall it be, which shall it
be, I looked at John, John looked at me.' It seems to me, since it
concerns us vitally, that we ought to have some selection in the matter
ourselves."

"But Kit, dear, you didn't read carefully," Jean interposed with a little
laugh. "See here," she followed the writing with her finger tip. "He says,
'Send me the boy.' There isn't any boy."

"No," Kit agreed, thoughtfully, "but I presume there should have been a
boy. I'm more like father than any of you, and I'd love to have been the
boy in the family. I wonder why he said that."

"Well, it certainly shuts off any further negotiations because 'there
ain't no sech animal' in the 'robin's' roster. And no matter what you say,
Kit, I don't think you're 'specially like father at all. He hasn't a quick
temper and he's not a single bit domineering."

Kit leaned over her tenderly.

"Dearest, am I domineering to you? Have I crushed your spirit, and made
you all weak and pindlin'?