“And just to think of her coming to live in a tent at Greenacre Farms,” Helen said, almost in a hushed whisper.  “It seems as if we ought to offer them the royal suite.”

“If you did, they would run away.  That is just what they have come here to escape from, all the royal suites and pomp.”

Even Jean was on the tiptoe of expectancy to get her first look at Madame Ormond.  While not one of the girls could have explained just exactly how they suspected she would look, still they held a blurred picture of a picturesque mortal set apart from ordinary home folks, who would probably dress more or less eccentrically.

Kit was in the kitchen making scones for lunch, when a shadow fell across the entry threshold.  Doris sat on the edge of the table by the window picking over blackberries, and the two stared fixedly at the intruder.  She was frankly over forty, a large buoyant type of woman with a mass of curly ashen blonde hair and sparkling black eyes, the north of Italy type, with a wonderful complexion, as Helen said later, like the skin of a yellow peach.  Perhaps it was her smile that charmed the girls mostly, though, at that first glance.  It was such a radiant smile of good fellowship when she peered into the shadowy interior of the old kitchen.

“Good-morning, everybody.  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?”

Doris told her shyly that they came from the rock pasture on the hill behind the house.

“Will you come down to the tent this afternoon and take me there?  Mr. Ormond 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 follow the trails together, yes?” She smiled down into Doris’ piquant, freckled little face, and just at this moment there came from the living-room, where Helen was dusting, Dinorah’s Shadow Song, sung in a clear, girlish soprano.

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 melody died away.  “You shall bring her down to the tent 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 the diva had gone on down towards the road with her butter, eggs and milk, “we’ve always believed we were an exceptional family.  In fact Mrs. Gorham told me once she thought every last one of us had very intelligent faces, but now we know we are budding geniuses.  Of course, Dorrie, you and I haven’t budded very much so far, but with an artist and a prima donna in a family, we’ll have to begin our song of triumph pretty soon.  I’ll bet a cookie she’ll go up there in the pasture every day and do her vocal practicing out of hearing of the ’cello, and Helenita will perch on the nearest rock and play echo.”