“I think,” said Kit, yawning and stretching her arms out in a perfect ecstasy of relaxation after a bout with her Latin, “I do think Socrates was an old bore. Always mixing in and contradicting everybody and starting something. No wonder his wife was cranky.” “He died beautifully,” Helen mused. “Something about a sunset and all his friends around him, and didn’t he owe somebody a chicken and tell his friends to pay for it?” “You’re sleepy. Go to bed, both of you,” Jean told them laughingly. “I’ll put out the light and fasten the doors.” She finished her letter alone. It was not easy to write it. Bab wanted her to come down for the spring term. She could board with her if she liked. Expenses were very light. Any expenses would be heavy if piled on the monthly budget of Greenacres. Jean knew that. So she wrote back with a heartache behind the plucky refusal, and stepped out on the moonlit veranda for a minute. It was clear and cold after the light snowfall. The stars were very faint. From the river came the sound of the waterfall, and up in the big white barn, Princess giving her stall a goodnight kick or two before settling down. “You stand steady, Jean Robbins,” she said, between her teeth. “Don’t you dare be a quitter. You stand steady and see this winter straight through.” CHAPTER III EVERGREEN AND CANDLELIGHT After her marriage to Judge Ellis, Cousin Roxy had taken Ella Lou from Maple Lawn over to the big white house behind its towering elms. “I’ve been driving her ten years and never saw a horse like her for knowingness and perspicacity,” she would say, her head held a little bit high, her spectacles half way down her nose. “I told the Judge if he wanted me he’d have to take Ella Lou too.” So it was Ella Lou’s familiar white nose that showed at the hitching post the following morning when the Boston cousins came over to get acquainted. Jean never forgot her introduction to Beth Newell. She was about forty-seven then, with her son Elliott fully five inches taller than herself, but she looked about twenty-seven. Her fluffy brown hair, her wide gray eyes, and quick sweet laughter, endeared her to the girls right away. “And she’s so slim and dear,” Doris added. “Her dress makes me think of an oak leaf in winter, and she’s a lady of the meads.” Elliott was about fifteen, not one single bit like his mother, but broad-shouldered and blonde and sturdy. It was so much fun, Kit said, to watch him take care of his mother. “Where’s your High School out here?” he asked. “I’m at Prep. specializing in mathematics.” “And how any son of mine can adore mathematics is beyond me,” Cousin Beth laughed. “I suppose it’s reaction. Do you like them, Jean?” She put her arm around the slender figure nearest her.