ss was slouchy and
gypsy-like. She looked at Kit with quiet, steady scrutiny, and then
questioningly over at the boys. But Kit herself relieved the tension.

"Hello," she said. "I think you've got an awfully nice place down here. I
like it because it looks old like our houses back home. All the other
places I've seen since I came west have looked so newly painted."

"This isn't new," the girl told her slowly. "This place belonged to my
grandfather's father, Louis Beaubien. There were Indians around here then.
Most of them 'Jibways."

Jean used to say that the instant Kit's curiosity was aroused, she was
just exactly like a squirrel after nuts, and here was an entirely new
field of romance and adventure to be uncovered. She fairly sniffed the
air. The wonderful old grandmother, basking in the sun with memories of
the past like a Mother Time. The strong, tanned boys working at the nets,
the flock of dark-skinned youngsters, and the girl, Marcelle, whom she was
to know so well before her stay in Delphi was over.

She hurried back, eager to ask questions about the Beaubiens, and found
herself late for breakfast the very first morning she was there. The
Dean's face was a study as she entered, and Miss Daphne's fingers
fluttered somewhat nervously over the coffee urn, and fragile cups. Kit
was out of breath, and so full of excitement that she did not even notice
the air was chill.

"I've had a perfectly wonderful time," she began. "No coffee, Aunt Daphne,
please. Mother doesn't allow me to have any. It's all Sandy's fault. I
just wanted to run down the bluff to the shore, and he led me way round
that headland to the funniest old house, half-sunken in the sand, and I
got acquainted with the old grandmother and Marcelle. The boys and the
little youngsters seemed half-scared to death at the sight of me, and so I
didn't bother to get acquainted with them yet."

The Dean looked up at her over his glasses with a quizzical expression,
and Miss Daphne fairly caught her breath.

"The Beaubiens on the shore, my dear?" she asked. "Those half-breed French
Canadians?"

"Well, I didn't know just what they were," answered Kit, cheerfully, "but
I think they're awfully interesting. Don't you think that they look like
the Breton fisher people in some of the old French paintings? That girl
looked just exactly like the youngest one crossing the sands at low tide
at St. Malo. We have the painting at home, and I love it. And there was
ano