He heard her father meet her in the hall; Ursule had already joined them; he reëntered the coach and rolled rapidly beyond recall.
The burning of the Osprey did not concern Mr. Raleigh's business-relations. Carrying his papers about him, he had personally lost thereby nothing of consequence. He refreshed himself, and proceeded at once to the transactions awaiting him. In a brief time he found that affairs wore a different aspect from that for which he had been instructed, and letters from the house had already arrived, by the overland route, which required mutual reply and delay before he could take further steps; so that Mr. Raleigh found himself with some months of idleness upon his hands, in a land with not a friend. There lay a little scented billet, among the documents on his table, that had at first escaped his attention; he took it up wonderingly, and broke the seal. It was from his Cousin Kate, and had been a few days before him. Mrs. McLean had heard of his expected arrival, it said, and begged him, if he had any time to spare, to spend it with her in his old home by the lake, whither every summer they had resorted to meditate on the virtues of the departed. There was added, in a different hand, whose delicate and pointed characters seemed singularly familiar,--
"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, dear Charlie,
brave Charlie!
"Come o'er the stream, Charlie, and dine
wi' McLean!"
Mr. Raleigh looked at the matter a few moments; he did not think it best to remain long in the city; he would be glad to know if sight of the old scenes could renew a throb. He answered his letters, replenished his wardrobe, and took, that same day, the last train for the North. At noon of the second day thereafter he found Mr. McLean's coach, with that worthy gentleman in person, awaiting him, and he stepped out, when it paused at the foot of his former garden, with a strange sense of the world as an old story, a twice-told tale, a maze of error.
Mrs. McLean came running down to meet him,--a face less round and rosy than once, as the need of pink cap-ribbons testified, but smiling and bright as youth.
"The same little Kate," said Mr. Raleigh, after the first greeting, putting his hands on her shoulders and smiling down at her benevolently.
"Not quite the same Roger, though," said she, shaking her head. "I expected this stain on your skin; but, dear me! your eyes look as if you had not a friend in the world."
"How can they look so, when you give me such a welcome?"
"Dear old Roger, you are just the same," said she, bestowing a little caress upon his sleeve. "And if you remember the summer before you went away, you will not find that pleasant company so very much changed either."
"I do not expect to find them at all."
"Oh, then they will find you; because they are all here,--at least the principals; some with different names, and some, like myself, with duplicates,"--as a shier Kate came down toward them, dragging a brother and sister by the hand, and shaking chestnut curls over rosy blushes.
After making acquaintance with the new cousins, Mr. Raleigh turned again to Mrs. McLean.