Mary Cassatt painting

Mary Cassatt painting
Craddock was silent for a moment or two. He reread the letter carefully before handing it back.
"What did you do on receipt of this letter, Miss Crackenthorpe?"
"My brother-in-law, Bryan Eastley, happened to be staying with me at the time and I talked to him about it. Then I rang up my brother Harold in London and consulted him about it. Harold was rather sceptical about the whole thing and advised extreme caution. We must, he said, go carefully into this woman's credentials."
Emma paused and then went on
Mary Cassatt painting
"That, of course, was only common sense and I quite agreed. But if this girl - woman – was really the Martine about whom Edmund had written to me, I felt that we must make her welcome. I wrote to the address she gave in her letter inviting her to come down to Rutherford Hall and meet us. A few days later I received a telegram from London: Very sorry forced to return to France unexpectedly. Martine."
"All this took place - when?"
Emma frowned.
"It was shortly before Christmas. I know, because I wanted to suggest her spending Christmas with us - but my father would not hear it - so I suggested she should come down the week-end after Christmas while the family would still be there. I think the wire saying she was returning to France came actually a few days before Christmas."
Mary Cassatt painting