"Aren't you ever going to get up?" demanded Sarah.
Rosemary sat up and regarded her sister sleepily.
"Did you hear the violin?" she asked.
"What violin?" Sarah's surprise was an answer in itself.
While she dressed, hurried by the impatient younger girls, for Shirley soon joined Sarah, Rosemary told of the music she had heard the night before.
"Mother heard it, too; we both saw the old man," she asserted when they were inclined to be skeptical and scoffed that she had been dreaming.
Winnie had evidently risen "with the larks" as she was fond of declaring (though when pressed by Sarah, intent on the habits and traits of larks, she had been forced to admit that she had never seen one) for the windows on the first floor were unlocked and open to the fresh morning air and the upper half of the Dutch door folded back to let in a flood of sunshine.
"Breakfast will be ready in ten minutes," Winnie greeted the girls. "Ten minutes, no more, no less; and you're not to set foot out of the house until you've eaten, because I don't intend to spend my time fishing Sarah out of the well and pulling Shirley from under a hay stack while the muffins are getting cold."
Mrs. Willis, coming downstairs, cool and sweet in a blue linen gown, laughed at this arraignment but she, too, insisted that the farm should be seen after breakfast.
"And do be careful about hindering Mr. and Mrs. Hildreth," she cautioned them as they sat down at the table. "They are very busy folk, I know, and you mustn't expect them to answer too many questions. Richard and Warren will have their work laid out for them and can't be distracted—you will have weeks to explore Rainbow Hill and I don't want you to feel that you must be shown everything in one day."