"There are six of us left."
"'Left' implies 'taken,'" said Mr. Bergan, with a sigh.
"We have lost two of our number."
"So have we," replied Mr. Bergan. "But we have not six left—we have only one. However, she is a host in herself,—at least, we think so,"—he added, with a smile at his own enthusiasm. "But, will you come in and see your aunt and cousin?"
He led the way to a small room, pleasantly furnished as a library; and Bergan followed him, though not without a vague sense of a lurking reluctance and lukewarmness in the invitation,—which he sternly smothered, nevertheless, as unworthy of himself and unjust to his uncle.
Stepping to an open French window, Mr. Bergan slightly raised his voice and called,—
"Carice!"
"Yes, father!" was the instant answer, in a voice of peculiar richness and melody; and the next moment a young girl stood in the window, with a light shawl wrapped round her slender figure, and her hands filled with autumn flowers, just gathered. The light was too dim to show her features clearly; but a certain indefinable freshness and sweetness seemed to enter the room with her and diffuse itself through the atmosphere not less perceptibly than the scent of the flowers. At sight of a stranger, imperfectly seen in the twilight obscurity of the room, she stopped abruptly.
"It is your cousin, Bergan Arling, the son of my sister Eleanor," briefly explained her father.
There was a little start of surprise and of pleasure; then Carice dropped her flowers on the nearest table, and gave Bergan two cordial hands. Not only was there a charming grace in the unstudied action, but also the pleasant heart-warmth, the frank recognition of kinship and its appropriate sympathies, which Bergan had so unaccountably missed from his uncle's manner, even while trying to persuade himself, either that it was there, or that its absence was no matter of surprise.