“Yes, if you want to play bridge? She is so deaf, Herman! . . .”
“They won’t remember me,” said Constance, speaking of the old aunts. “They must have forgotten me in these twenty years. How old they have grown, Mamma! . . . How old we have all grown! Bertha is grey. I am going grey myself. . . . And all those little nieces, all those young nephews whom I have never seen. . . . Do they always come, on Sundays?”
“Yes, child, every Sunday. There’s a great kindness and affection among them all. I always think that so delightful.”
“We are a large family. I am glad to be here, but they are still like strangers to me. How many of us are there here, Mamma?”
“Oh, quite thirty! Let me see. . . .” Mamma van Lowe counted on her fingers. “Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer, with Toetie and Dot and Poppie and Piet and young Herman: that makes seven; then, Van Naghel and Bertha, with the four girls and Karel: that’s seven more; fourteen. . . .”
Constance listened to her mother’s addition, and smiled. . . . Twenty years, twenty years ago! She felt as though she could have burst out sobbing; but she controlled herself, smiled, stroked Mamma’s hand:
“Mamma, dear Mamma. . . . I am so glad to be back among you all!”
“Dear child!”
