ther girl about thirteen that I saw staring at me from the kitchen, and
she looked just like 'The Song of the Lark' girl where she's crossing the
fields at dawn."

"The Beaubiens have not a very good reputation, my dear," the Dean
coughed slightly behind his hand as he spoke. "The present generation may
be law-abiding, but even within my memory, the Beaubiens had a little
habit of smuggling."

"Smuggling?" repeated Kit, interestedly. "How could they smuggle way off
here?"

"Very easily. There were schooners that used to make the run down from the
Canadian shore around the Straits carrying contraband goods in war time.
Besides, there is the Indian strain in them, and they are squatters. There
have been several lawsuits against them, and they have persisted in
staying there on the shore when the property owners on the bluff
distinctly purchased riparian rights."

"But, brother, the Beaubiens won all their suits, didn't they?" asked Miss
Daphne, pleasantly. "I'm sure the older boys are very industrious, and I
think the girl Marcelle is strikingly attractive. You're not really
forbidding Kit to go down there, I'm sure."

The Dean said something that was lost in a murmur, for he had been one of
the property owners vanquished in the lawsuits by the Beaubiens. After
breakfast Kit went up-stairs with Miss Daphne into her own little
sitting-room. This looked towards the street, out over the maple and
pine-shaded lawn. Also, you could command a very fair view of the college.
This was built of gray stone like a Norman castle, with square towers, and
was overgrown with woodbine just beginning to show a tinge of crimson.

"It seems awfully queer, Aunt Daphne," Kit said as she leaned out of the
window, "to think that I am going there into the 'prep' class. Rex said on
the way up here----"

She leaned suddenly farther out and waved.

"Hello, Rex, are you coming over?"

Rex glanced up at the radiant face as he came along the hedge-bordered
drive between his home and the Dean's and waved back in neighborly
fashion.

"I'm going up to the campus now," he said. "Ask Miss Daphne if she'd let
you be in the library club. There's a meeting this morning."

"Could I, Aunt Daphne? Please say yes. I haven't joined anything in ages,"
Kit begged. "I don't care whether it's a library club or an Indian powwow.
I am just dying to be in something out here, where I'll meet every one and
get acquainted. If you don't need me this morning----"