"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!"
"They have all received me so nicely. So simply."
"Why, of course, Connie. You're their sister."
Constance was silent.... Dorine, with two of the young nieces, poured out the tea, brought it round:
"Have a cup, Constance? Milk? Sugar?"
How familiar and pleasant it sounded, just as though she were really one of them, as though she always had been one of them: "Have a cup, Constance?" ... As if it wasn't the first cup of tea she had had there for years and years!... Dear Dorine! Constance remembered her as a girl of seventeen, shy, not yet out, but even then caring, always caring, for others. She was not pretty, she was even plain, ungraceful, clumsy, badly-dressed....
"Yes, Dorine, I should like a cup.... Come here, Dorine. Sit down and talk to me: the girls can see to the tea."