“Good morning. I have come for butter and eggs and milk.” She spied the two-quart pail of berries on the table, and gave a little cry of interest. “Where do you find those, my dear?”
Jean told her politely that they came from the rock pasture on the hill behind the house.
“Will you come down to the cabin this afternoon and take me there? My husband is very, very busy working on his new opera, and I must be away and let him write in peace, so you and I will have to explore the woods together, yes?” She smiled down into Jean’s face, and just at that moment there came from the living room, where Doris was dusting, a clear, sweet soprano voice.
Madame Ormond laid her finger on her lips and listened, her eyes bright with attention and interest. “It is still another one of you?” she asked softly, when the song died away. “You shall bring her down to the cabin to me and let my husband try her voice with the cello. It is his big baby, that cello, but it is very wise, it never gives the wrong decision on a voice, and she has a very beautiful one.”
“Well,” Kit declared with a deep sigh, after Madame Ormond had gone on down toward the road with her butter, eggs, and milk, “we’ve always believed we were an exceptional family. We’ll have to begin our song of triumph pretty soon. I’ll bet she’ll go up there in the pasture every day and do her vocal practicing out of hearing of the cello, and Doris will sit on the nearest rock and play echo.”
Jean was telling Ralph about it that evening while they were sitting in the cool high air on the front porch as they did almost every evening. Although the others, with the exception of her mother and father, didn’t know it yet, Jean was going to be engaged that summer.
Not long after Ralph had come in June he had asked Jean if she had reached a decision on her art career. “Are you going to go ahead and get a job in that field and make it your career?” He asked a little anxiously, after Jean had finished an enthusiastic description of her previous year’s work in New York.
“I’ve pretty much decided against it, Ralph. I know you’ll be pleased because you never really wanted me to go through with it, I realize now. I realize something else, too, and that is how much I really love the country. How I missed it last winter. The noise of the city got on my nerves so, that I could hardly wait to get on the train when I was coming home weekends. Although I never told Mother, I almost dreaded having to go back when Sunday came.”
“Then you mean you wouldn’t mind living on the Canadian prairie?” Ralph asked, eagerly. “Are you quite sure that is what you really want?”
“Oh, of course, I’ll want to visit the city once in a while. I don’t want to forego the opportunities of city life altogether—the plays and concerts and exhibitions, I mean. As far as my career is concerned, art is only a hobby, I think, and I’d like my real career to be with you.”