Constance was happy. She began to realize more and more that she now had what she had missed for years: her family; she held it a privilege dearer every day that she was back in her own country, in Holland. It was as though she became more and more penetrated with the consciousness that she had found all her near ones again, that they had one and all forgiven her the past; and sometimes she imagined that it was not really twenty years since she went away: those twenty years seemed to shrink. In her brothers and sisters she recognized by degrees all the peculiarities of former days, just as though they had grown no older; and Mamma had remained exactly the same. Nor could she but admire secretly the almost childlike simplicity of Van der Welcke, who moved about calmly in the midst of her relations, though they were all utter strangers to him and though he, of course, could have no family-feeling for any of them. He was most intimate with Paul and oftenest in his company. Constance would have liked to see more of Bertha, but it was true, they lived at some distance from each other; and yet they found each other again, as sisters, in that conversation shortly after Emilie’s marriage. Constance indeed was surprised that an open-hearted talk such as this was not more often renewed between Bertha and herself; but, in any case, they now felt as sisters.
