Kit of Greenacre Farm Part 10

"A tea in honor of Malcolm Douglas, pioneer founder of Hope College, and grandfather of Marcelle Beaubien."

Anne's blue eyes widened in amazement, and her hair-brush was suspended in mid-air.

"How did you find out?" she whispered. "Does Marcelle know?"

"Of course she knows. She told me all about it herself, but I don't think she's got sense enough to realize what a nice handy little club of defense it gives her against the girls to spring it on them at the tea, and you've got to help me get it up. We'll coax Charity into loaning us her room first, and I'll look up all about Malcolm Douglas, and write a cute little essay about the historic founding of Hope. Then we'll send out mysterious little invitations, and just say on them, 'To meet a Founder's granddaughter.'"

"When?" asked Anne, reflectively. "You ought to do it soon, so if it works they'll take her into the different clubs right away. I think you ought to try and see Charity to-day after cla.s.ses and get her advice. Another thing, Kit, do you suppose Marcelle would have any relics around of her grandfather that we could kind of spring on them unexpectedly?"

Kit's eyes kindled with appreciation.

"That's a worthy thought. Sort of corroborative evidence, as it were.

Anne, you're a wonder." She sprang up from the couch, her hands deep in her white sweater pockets, looking very fit and purposeful. "I think it's up to me to go and prepare Charity. You make out a list of things that we'll want for the tea. You'd better be the refreshment chairman, and we'll try and make it a week from next Sat.u.r.day."

"Too far off," Anne demurred. "Better do it while it's fresh in your mind, before you start lectures."

"I believe I'll go over now. It's only a little after five, and that'll keep me from answering that family budget until I've calmed down. If you see any one looking for me, tell them I'll be right straight back. I'll stop in the library and look up Malcolm's historic record, on my way, so you may truthfully announce I'm delving into research."

Kit went up the hill road buoyantly. Dearly she loved to set a goal ahead of her, and then run for it. Delphi had appeared rather barren as a field for her real endeavor, but now with the opening of school, she could see her way ahead to conscientiously starting something, which she sincerely hoped she could finish. Coming along the sidewalk which bounded the campus on the south, she met Charity on her way back from the post-office.

"This is ever so much better than going up-stairs," Kit said. "Let's walk around the campus twice, while I unburden my soul."

At the second lap, the whole plan had been matured by Charity's quick sympathy and understanding.

"And it will do them good, too," she said, as they parted. "That's not the college spirit by a long shot, and you're perfectly right, Kit, but just the same it's easier to get it on the girls in this way with a nice friendly accompaniment of sandwiches, and iced tea, and whatever you do, Kit, don't breathe one blessed word to anybody. I wouldn't even tell Marcelle herself that she is to be the guest of honor. She'd run like a deer, if she even suspected it."

The date of the Founders' Tea was set for the following Sat.u.r.day. Kit evolved the invitations herself and wrote them on blank cards, as she remembered doing back at the Cove in the days of opulence and entertainment.

_Sat.u.r.day, October Second, Three to Five_.

You are invited to attend a Founders' Tea, Douglas Dormitory, Hope College, Miss Allen's Study.

"Diffident, modest and correct," quoth Kit, critically, when she showed them to Anne. "Now, what are you going to eat, Anne? Isn't there something besides just plain tea? Couldn't we fix up some kind of glorified lemonade?"

"I've got it all down," answered Anne. "Grape juice, ginger ale and lemons. It's wonderful, and six kinds of sandwiches. Cheese with pimento, and cheese with chopped walnuts, lettuce and egg, chopped raisins with beaten white of egg, and raspberry jam and cream cheese, sardine on lettuce with mayonnaise and deviled ham, with macaroons on the side."

"It's perfectly dandy," exclaimed Kit. "Aunt Daphne told me when I first started in that I could give a spread for the girls, and this is it. After it's all over, I'll tell her about Marcelle, and I know she'll enjoy it and approve. I think we ought to get Peggy or Amy to write some kind of an anniversary ode for us. It might begin like this:

"Oh, have you a family founder, On your ancestral tree, Who laid the corner-stone of Hope On the campus at Del-phee."

"Better finish that up, and read it at the tea," advised Anne; "there's something so spirited about it. Is Charity going to decorate the study for the festal occasion? We ought to have something sort of different, don't you think so?"

"Pioneer relics would be the only thing, and I don't know where we'd scare those up."

"There's a whole cabinet of them in the Dean's room at the a.s.sembly Hall."

The two girls looked at each other wisely. The subject really needed no argument or discussion. Kit said briefly:

"I'll try. I think I can get some of them anyway if I approach Uncle Ca.s.sius as a humble student seeking knowledge."

All unprepared for the onslaught, the Dean sat enjoying his after dinner smoke that evening when Kit tapped at the door.

"Come in," he called, a little bit testily, looking over his eye-gla.s.ses at the intruder. "I don't think I can talk with you just now, my dear," he said. "I am very busy working out a dynasty problem."

"Oh, but I'd love to help," Kit pleaded, "and I did help before on the aborigines of j.a.pan, didn't I? I even remember their names, the Ainos."

"This is early Egyptian. Something you know nothing whatever about."

"Just mummies?" inquired Kit. "Oh, Uncle Ca.s.sius, we girls back home made up a lovely little couplet about that when we were studying Egypt at high school.

"'Heaven bless the royal mommies, And the jewels in their tummies.'"

No answering gleam of amus.e.m.e.nt showed in the Dean's eyes. In fact, be regarded her, Kit thought, rather severely for this unseemly display of levity.

"Of course," she added, hastily, "that was when I was very much younger than I am now. It was two years ago."

The Dean coughed deprecatingly, and turned back to the pamphlets before him.

"Remains have been discovered," he began in quite the tone he used in a.s.sembly, "of the lost tribe of the Nemi. When the Greeks, my dear, obtained a foothold in Carthage and along the Mediterranean coast, the Nemi remained unconquered and retreated to the mountain fastnesses, west of the source of the Nile."

"Well, I know all about that," Kit answered, encouragingly, perching herself on the arm of a chair, across from him. "Just see," and she counted off on her fingers, "Livingstone-Stanley,--Victoria Falls--Zambesi--and Kipling wrote all about the people in 'Fuzzy-Wuzzy.'"

"No, no, no, not a bit like it!" the Dean exclaimed. "My dear child, learn to think in centuries and epochs. The long and short of it is, there have been some very wonderful remains of the Nemi recently discovered, and I have been honored by a commission from the Inst.i.tute to write a complete summary of the results of the expedition and its historic significance."

"Don't you wish you'd been there when they dug them up? That's what I'd love, the exploring part, don't you know. I should think it would be fearfully dry trying to make bones sit up and talk, when you are so far away from it all."

"They are not sending me bones," replied the Dean with dignity, "but they are sending me the Amenotaph urn, and a sitting image of Annui. I believe with these two I shall be able to establish as a fact the survival of the Greek influence in ancient Egypt. My dear, you have no idea," he added, warmly, "how much this explains if it is true. There may be even some Phoenician data before I finish investigating."

"Phoenicians," thought Kit, although she said nothing. "Yes, I do remember about them, too. Tin,--ancient Britain--and something about Carthage, or was that Queen Dido?" Then she said aloud very positively and earnestly:

"I know I can help you a lot with this, Uncle Ca.s.sius, if you will only let me, because history is my favorite study, and the reason I came to speak to you to-night is this: We girls are going to have a Founders' Tea, Sat.u.r.day afternoon, up at Hope; just a little informal affair, but I'd like to give it a----" She hesitated for the right word, and the Dean nodded encouragingly, being in a better mood.

"Semblance of verity? Are you preparing a treatise?"

"No. I want something they can look at," Kit explained, "and I knew if I told you about it, you'd let us take a few of the old things out of that cabinet in your room at a.s.sembly Hall. All I need would be--well, say a few portraits of any of the founders of Hope, and any of the relics of the Indians or French explorers."

The Dean graciously detached a key from the ring at one end of the slender chain which barred his waistcoat.

Kit retired with it, as though she bore a trophy, and the next day the last preparations were completed for impressing on the freshman cla.s.s the honor of having a Founder's granddaughter in their midst.

CHAPTER XIV

IN HONOR OF MARCELLE