“Well, well, remember one thing. ‘Speak the truth in love.’ Coax her out of it instead of scolding. She’s only thirteen, you know, Jeanie, and that’s a trying age. Let her dream awhile. It passes soon enough, this ‘standing with reluctant feet, where the brook and river meet.’ Remember that? And it would be an awfully funny world if we were all cut out with the same cookie dip.” So Helen had a respite from admonishings, and Kit would eye her elder sister suspiciously, noticing Jean’s sudden change of tactics. Two of Helen’s daily duties were to feed the canary and water the plants in the sunny bay window. But half the time it was Kit who did it at the last minute before they hurried away to school. Then, too, Jean would notice Kit surreptitiously attack Helen’s neglected pile of mending and wade though it in her quick, easy-going way, while Helen sat reading by the fire. But she said nothing, and Kit grew uneasy. “I’d much rather you’d splutter and say something, Jean,” she said one day. “But you know Helen helps me in her way. I can’t bear to dust and she does all of my share on Saturday. She opened up that box of books for Father from Mr. Everden, and put them all away in his bookcase in just the right order, and she’s been helping me with my French like sixty. You know back at the Cove she just simply ate up French from Mother’s maid, Bettine, when she was so little she could hardly speak English. So it’s give and take with us, and if I’m satisfied, I don’t think you ought to mind.” “I don’t, not any more,” Jean replied, bending over a neglected box of oil pastels happily. “You do just as you want to, and I’m awfully sorry I was catty about it. I guess the weather up here’s got on my nerves, although Cousin Roxy and Jean Robbins have cooked up something between them, and that’s why she looks so serene and calm.” She paused in the lower hall and looked out of the little top glass in the door. Around the bend of the road came Mr. Ricketts’ little white mail cart and old white horse with all its daily promise of letters and papers. Kit was out of the house, bareheaded, in a minute, running to meet him. “Got quite a lot this time,” he called to her hopefully. “I couldn’t make out all of them, but there’s one right from Californy and I guess that’s what you’re looking for.” Kit laughed and took back the precious load. Magazines from Mrs. Crane, and newspapers from the West. Post-cards for Lincoln’s birthday from girl friends at the Cove, and one from Piper with a picture of a disconsolate Boston bull dog saying, “Nobody loves me.” Jean opened the California letter first, with the others hanging over the back of her chair. It was not long, but Kit led in the cheer of thanksgiving over its message. “We expect to leave here about the 18th, and should be in Gilead a week later.”