"Well, I do," Helen answered, placidly. "I think he'd look wonderful in doublet and hose with a long cloak thrown around him. I think he's much better looking than Ralph."

"You'd better not let Jean hear you say so," Kit told her sagely. "I wouldn't be very much surprised if something mighty interesting happened here this summer. I heard mother and Cousin Roxy talking about Ralph and Jean the other day."

"Oh, Kit, don't be mean. Tell me what they said, please. I won't tell."

"Impossible, child," returned Kit, loftily. "In fact, it was only what I might call a family rumor. But, I can tell you this much, I know perfectly well that Ralph MacRae has asked Dad for his eldest daughter's hand, and I don't know a blessed thing more."

Helen sighed happily.

"I hope she has a September wedding, all gold and purple. It would just suit Jean. If one could only dress her in violet velvet with a girdle of amethysts set with pearls, and braid her hair with strands of jewels, too.

Jean always has that far-away look, in her eyes that princesses should have."

"Well, I don't see where you get your princess pattern from," remarked Kit. "From all the recent pictures that I've seen, they're a very ordinary, old-fashioned lot of young persons, and decidedly at the dumpling stage. Besides, Jean herself might have something to say about it. It will be her wedding, you know, Helen."

They had walked down to the Peckham mill after supper to get some supplies that Danny Peckham had promised to bring up from Nantic. Just as they came to the turn of the road there came a strange sound from the direction of the waterfall tent, deep, rich strains of music, almost as low pitched and thrilling as the sound of the water itself. Both girls stood stock still listening, until Helen whispered:

"It must be Mr. Ormond. He's playing on something, isn't he?"

"A 'cello, child," Kit said, drawing in a deep breath as though she could fairly inhale the sweetness of the music on the night air. "I haven't heard one since we left the Cove, and it's mother's favorite music. I wish I knew what he's playing. It sounds like Solveig's song from Peer Gynt, and I love that."

"Then, that's what he does." Helen's tone held a touch of admiring awe as she listened. "And we thought he might be anything from a counterfeiter to an escaped convict hiding away up here. Oh, Kit, why do you suppose he keeps away from every one?"

"Probably got a hidden sorrow," Kit answered. "Still he's got a terrible appet.i.te. Mrs. Gorham says she doesn't see how he ever puts away the amount of food he does. He buys whole roast chickens and eats them all himself."

Just then the music ceased suddenly. The flap of the tent lifted towards the roadway, and Mr. Ormond sent a hail across the twilight gloom.

"Is that you, Shad?"

"No, sir, it's just us girls," answered Kit. "We're going down to the mill."

"Would you mind so very much, Miss Kit, asking if any one has telephoned a telegram up for me from the station? I am expecting one."

"There, you see," Helen said, dubiously, as they went on down the road.

"We just get rid of one mystery, and he hands us another one to solve. Who on earth would he be getting a telegram from?"

Kit laughed and slipped her arm around the slender shoulders that were growing so quickly up to her own.

"You're getting just as bad as every one else here in Gilead, Helenita. I thought only Mr. Ricketts took an interest in telegrams and post-cards."

Nevertheless, when Sally told them that there had been a message 'phoned up from Nantic, even Kit showed quick interest.

It was signed "Concetta," and the message read:

"Arrive Nantic, ten-two. All love and tenderness. Contract signed."

The girls returned after delivering the message, brimful of the news, but Mr. Robbins laughed at them.

"Why, bless your hearts," he said, "I could have told you long ago all about Bryan Ormond. He is one of the greatest 'cellists we have, and is married to Madame Concetta Doria, the grand-opera singer. He told me when he first took the tent for the summer, but as he was composing a new opera, he wanted absolute solitude up here, and asked me not to let any one know who they were."

"Talk about entertaining an angel unawares," Jean exclaimed. "Now, Helen, 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."

Helen only smiled happily. It was she who had pleaded most for the preservation of the empire grand piano. The one in the gold case with all the Watteau figures and garlands painted on it, that had been saved as one of the "white hyacinths" from the old home. After the day's work was over, it was always Helen who stole into the dim front room to listen while her mother played over favorite airs from the old grand-operas.

Perhaps only Helen really understood how at this time Gilead and all its rural delights vanished, and in their place came memories of the days back at the Cove, when the season tickets at the opera had been as natural a part of the year's pleasures as setting hens were here.

"Have you ever heard her sing, mother?" she asked, that first evening, after Mrs. Robbins had played the "Shadow Dance" from "Dinorah" and the trio from "Traviata."

"I heard her in both of these, dear, and ever so many more. I think my favorite was Rigoletto. She was a beautiful, girlish Gilda, but that is years ago. You girls will love her."

"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 ma.s.s 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 b.u.t.ter 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 b.u.t.ter, 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."

CHAPTER XXVIII

STANLEY PAYS AN OLD SCORE

The first week in August, Jean, who had acted as treasurer of the tent fund, announced that it had proved a solid financial success. Every tent was full and booked up to the middle of September. The girls from the Art School had persuaded two more batches to find the trail to Gilead, and Billie's boy friends had turned their tents into headquarters for the club they belonged to at school.

Jeff Saunders had used his car back and forth until Kit declared it made her think of the fox, goose and bag of corn story.

"Jeff skips down to Richmond and takes back a couple of boys, lays off himself for a couple of weeks, and lo, and behold, the car comes back with three new ones, but I must say that they're the best behaved lot of boys I ever saw. You'd hardly know they were around at all, except for the tw.a.n.ging of ukuleles and guitars at night. And they certainly have kept us supplied with fish ever since they came. I think it's done Dad a world of good going away with them and kind of turning into a boy again. Stanley said the other day they were going out fishing all night just as soon as the ba.s.s were running."

Mrs. Gorham was setting the table for lunch and stopped at the last words, one hand on her ample hip, and a look of anxiety in her eyes.

"They ain't calculatin' to fish over there beyond the dam, are they?

That's where the Gaskell boy come near drowning a year ago, when his boat upset. It's just full of sunken snags for half a mile up the river above the island."