nd, there being a piece of looking-glass set outside, at right angles to the pane, also most who came down it. This, though doubtless very informing, did n

, being supposed just then to be preparing vegetables for dinner. She had only come

lish miss," the old lady said, and

ing, I see; she seem

itically; "It is so conspicuous, I could n

swered; "they think everything will get out of their

r she is not pretty; no one looks at her to adm

ook-she has twenty new dishes, and everything is done quickly, one cannot tell how; it is like having a magician

d them a great deal more. They continued to talk about her a great deal afterwards, Denah going

h these," she said;

said. "She has been there but one month and already there is no one like her. She does not keep her

ers for him since one of the clerks has been ill. My father says she can cook like a Frenchwoman, and that is something. As fo

ge, for the English women make fun of us for this, and pretend that they are educated and advanced above us; she is not, she can do nothing but speak a few languages; she cannot sing nor play, she has read no science, she cannot draw, nor model in wax, nor make paper flowers, nor do bead work; she

Heigens' house. They did not walk in the wide, clean road, but were careful to keep to the path,

ugh immediately in front was a lawn so soft and green that no one ever walked on it. The house was of wood, painted white, and

t met. She kissed them on both cheeks, and led them in by the hand; she asked particularly how they were, and how their mother was, and how their father was, and if they wer

nd she did not differentiate between the grades of aprons as Denah and Anna did. She set down the tray and shook hands ceremoniously with the sisters and made all the proper inquiries in the properest way; she had also observed that to be the custom of the place. Then she poured out the lemonade and handed it round, and was afterwards sent to fetch a glass for herself and a little round tr

of ideas it was, and how little strain to make conversation! Then came Mevrouw's throat, the little hoarseness Denah had noticed on Tuesday. It was nothing, the good lady declared, she had not felt it. Oh, if they insisted on noticing it, she would own to a weakness but no more than was usual to her when the dust was abou

almost half a metre of the piece I began

dded by way of apology for her, that she

na asked. "Do you

" Julia answered; "bu

und to get a fine effect for a small expense, and that is not possible without a large outlay of time and consi

sten much to either, but noticing the glasses were empty, pressed the visitors in vain to have more lemonade. They refused, and finding them quite obdurate she toddled into the little room where Julia had been doing the shrimps,

ates an idea; anyhow, it was agreed that the weather was so dry and the trees so lovely and Mevrouw so seldom went out. She really felt-did she not?-that she w

id so volubly. Where should they go? Half-a-dozen different places were suggested; why not go here, or there, or to the wood? Yes, the wood, that wou

work quite straight, and with kisses and hand-shakings the visitors departed. Julia went back to the little room where first she washed the glasses that had been used, afterwards she finished the shrimps

office joined the house and the great dim orderly bulb barns joined the office, so the father and son had not far to come in whichever place they might be. Julia and Mevrouw fetched the food from the kitc

a good deal about his affairs now, giving her little bits of information and explaining rather proudly his method of doing business, and his father's and his grandfather's before him. Joost, as usual, said little or nothing; he must have been five or six and twenty, but he had hardly ever left the parental roof, and was usually so hard at work that he had little time or inclination for frivolity. He ha

ewhat stuffy being all closed in with glass windows. There they drank pale tea, the pot kept simmering on a spirit-stove, and read the foreign papers which had just come. Mevrouw did not read, she made tea and did crochet work,

ay, they had prayers; Mijnheer read a chapter from the Bible, and they sat round the table and listened, and afterwards he said, "Now we will pray," and they sat a while in silence. Julia sat, too, her keen, observing eyes cast down and a curious stillness about her. After that every one went to bed; Julia and the maidservant had two little rooms right up in the eaves of the house; the family slept on the floor below. Julia was glad of this, though it was possible to imagine her room would be very hot in summer and very cold in winter. But she was glad to be well above the slee

kmen having all gone home, there was no one about and she could ascend the steep barn ladders without any suffering in her modesty. At least that was

ose, tier upon tier, in an enormous stand that occupied the whole centre of the place, all perfectly orderly. On the shelves the bulbs lay, every one smooth and clean and dry, sorted according to kind and quality; Mijnheer knew them all; he could, like a book-lover with his books, put his hand upon any that he wished in t

blood-red rosettes, sheltered by a high close-clipped hedge. And another patch of iris hispanica, fairy flowers of palest gold and lavender, quivering at the top of their grey-green stalks like tropical dragon-flies hovering over a field of growing oats. These it seemed, and many others, would be brought in by and by, then the grea

first, we set it in the ground and these begin to grow and become in time as you see them

or them to grow full

e is no flower like the hyacinth; had I my way, I would grow nothing else, but people will not have them now. They must have novelties. 'Give us narcissus,' they say; 'they are so graceful'-I do not see the grace-'Or iris'-well, some are fine, I allow, but they do not last in bloom as do hyacinths.

scarce?" J

ave one novelty that is a true one, it is a wonder, it has no price, it is priceless!" He drew a deep breath of alm

e. There was no need for her to say much, only to put a question here and there, or make a sympathetic comment; with little or no effort she learned a good deal about the wonderful bulb. It seemed that it really had been grown in

mortalise?" the old man asked at last. "It is cal

nour of Mevrouw, I

not; Jo

Joost?" sh

is wonderful in her ways; we can only help her, we cannot create. Yes, yes, it is Joost who has done this. He seemed to you a retiring youth? Yet he is the most envied and most honoured man

family, did it rank with these bulb growers. They, these people whom her mother would have called market gardeners, tradespeople, it seemed, loved and reverenced their work; they thought about it and for it, were proud of it and valued distinction in it, and nothing else. The blue daffodil was no valuable commercial asset

ely cast down, though once or twice she looked round the old barn-like place, and wondered if there were any frescoes under the whitewash of the walls and whence came the faint, all pervading smell, like a phantom of incense long forgotten. When service was over and they came out into the sunny street, Mijnheer announced that he was going to see

s prefer I did no

rprise; "I shall be pleased, if yo

"You are sure you do not mind?" he sai

with twinkling eyes. "I am afraid I

ew how to dress), were unlike any others in sight. Her face, too, dark and thin and keenly alert, was unlike, and her light, e

room for her and she saw by his f

had not failed to notice, though he was not aware that the softest was also usually the most mis

n the quiet, bright streets; there were many people about, but nobody in a hurry, and all in Sunday clothes, bent on visiting or decorous pleasure-making. Everywhere was sunn

purplish red in colour, and with carving above the doors. Julia looked up at her favourite doorpiece-a g

ful town I was ever in," she sai

must be quite unlike what you

l of it, as you say-the pl

think it-you do not think u

ew. "No," she answered, "I admire it all very much, it is sincere, no one appears other than he is, or aims at being or seemi

would hardly have spoken so frankly. "I fear I do not understand you," he

s possible. If we were born in the same place, in

afraid she was laughing at him. "You

hey were in the quieter part of the town now and could t

hrough everything, I think. They sweep round the room, or the persons or the place, and gather all-may I say it?-like s

young that she did not before know that children and child-like folk sometimes divine by instinct the same conclusions that very clever people

ink me very cle

answered simply,

can I do, except cook? Oh, yes, and speak a few foreign language as you can yourself? I cannot paint,

he admitted; "

her opinion of Bach, and she did not feel in the l

g and no accomplishments. I cannot even get on with the crochet wo

paper?" he asked, in his serious w

em beautifully,

They had almost reached home now; a little before they came to the gate, Joost opened the subject of herself

comes out of your head and stands in front of you; the goblin is you, a sort of you; the other part, the part people know, sits opposite, and the goblin laughs at it because it sees

f he had been in her room last night; the impropriety of them to him was evident. For a moment she blushed, too, then she recovered herself and grew im