There was a big, black headline on the front page of the Enterprise, stating that some Archduke Ferdinand or other had been assassinated at a place bearing the weird name of Sarajevo, but Susan tarried not over uninteresting, immaterial stuff like that; she was in quest of something really vital.
Oh, here it was--"Jottings from Glen St.Mary." Susan settled down keenly, reading each one over aloud to extract all possible gratification from it.
Mrs.Blythe and her visitor, Miss Cornelia--alias Mrs.Marshall Elliott--were chatting together near the open door that led to the veranda, through which a cool, delicious breeze was blowing, bringing whiffs of phantom perfume from the garden, and charming gay echoes from the vine-hung corner where Rilla and Miss Oliver and Walter were laughing and talking.

Wherever Rilla Blythe was, there was laughter.
There was another occupant of the living-room, curled up on a couch, who must not be overlooked, since he was a creature of marked individuality, and, moreover, had the distinction of being the only living thing whom Susan really hated.
All cats are mysterious but Dr.Jekyll-and-Mr.Hyde--"Doc" for short--was trebly so.

He was a cat of double personality--or else, as Susan vowed, he was possessed by the devil.

To begin with, there had been something uncanny about the very dawn of his existence.

Four years previously Rilla Blythe had had a treasured darling of a kitten, white as snow, with a saucy black tip to its tail, which she called Jack Frost.