The girls returned after delivering the message, brimful of the news, but Mr. Craig laughed at them.
“Why, my goodness,” he said, “I could have told you long ago all about Bryan Ormond. He’s one of the greatest cellists we have, and is married to Madame Concetta Doria, the opera singer. He told me when he first took the cabin for the summer, but as he was composing a new opera, he wanted absolute solitude up here and asked me not to let anyone know who he was.”
“Talk about entertaining an angel unawares,” Jean exclaimed. “Now, Doris, you’ll have your chance, if you can only get acquainted with her. I can see you perched on their threshold drinking in trills and quavers the rest of the summer.”
Doris only smiled happily. It was she who had begged the hardest to bring the piano with them when they moved to Elmhurst. She really played quite well and had a pleasing voice.
“Have you ever heard her sing, Mother?” she asked.
“Yes, many times. She has a lovely voice and you will like her.”
“And just to think of her coming to live in a cabin at Woodhow,” Doris said, almost in a whisper. “It seems as if we ought to offer them the best room in the house.”
“If you did, they would run away. That’s just what they have come here to escape from, all the fuss and publicity.”
Jean, too, was eagerly expecting Madame Ormond. While not one of the girls could have explained just exactly how they thought she would look, still they held a blurred picture of someone unusual, who would probably dress more or less eccentrically.
Kit was in the kitchen making sandwiches for lunch, when a shadow fell across the doorway. Jean sat on the edge of the table by the window picking over blackberries, and the two stared at the intruder. She was about the same age as Mr. Ormond, a large buoyant type of woman with a mass of curly ash-blonde hair, sparkling black eyes, and a wonderful complexion. Perhaps it was her smile that charmed the girls most, though, at that first glance. It was such a radiant smile of good fellowship when she peered into the shadowy interior of the kitchen.