She drew Dorine to the sofa beside her and nestled between her mother and her sister:
"Tell me, Dorine, do you still look after everybody so well? Do you still pour the tea?"
Her voice had a broken sound, full of a melancholy that permeated her simple, bantering words. Dorine made some vague reply.
"When I went away," said Constance, "you were not seventeen. You were always cutting bread-and-butter for Bertha's children. Otto and Louise were seven and five then; Emilie was a baby. Now she's engaged...."
She smiled, but her eyes were full of tears, her breast heaved.
"My dear child," said the old lady.
"It's a long time ago, Connie," said Dorine.
It was twenty years since any one had called her Connie.
"So you're thirty-six now, Dorine?"
"Yes, Connie, thirty-six," said Dorine, uncomfortable, as usual, when anybody spoke of her; and she felt her smooth, flat hair, to see if it was drawn well back.