ould 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.

"And who are there here?" he asked.

"There is Mrs. Purcell,--you remember Helen Heath? Poor Mrs. Purcell,
whom you knew, died, and her slippers fitted Helen. She chaperons Mary,
who is single and speechless yet; and Captain, now Colonel, Purcell
makes a very good silent partner. He is hunting in the West, on
furlough; she is here alone. There is Mrs. Heath,--you never have
forgotten her?"

"Not I."

"There is"------

"And how came you all in the country so early in the season,--anybody
with your devotion to company?"

"To be made April fools, John says."

"Why, the willows are not yet so yellow as they will be."

"I know it. But we had the most fatiguing winter; and Mrs. Laudersdale
and I agreed, that, the moment the snow was off the ground up here, we
would fly away and be at rest."

"Mrs. Laudersdale? Can she come