he became
aware, after years, as though it had been slumbering, of a warm
family-affection for all her brothers and sisters and their children.
Did she inherit it from her mother? A warm family-affection. She would
have loved to have a friendly talk with Adolphine, to advise her to
separate the different elements a little at those evenings of hers, to
make her invitations less heterogeneous and to tell Floortje not to wear
a soiled ball-dress on an occasion like that! And then those three boys,
with their dirty hands, rushing about the crammed drawing-rooms without
any idea of manners, so badly brought up compared with her Addie, who
perhaps had not been brought up at all, but who was such a nice little
fellow of himself, so polite, stiff though he might be, and who talked
properly and not with a splutter of low Hague slang! Oh, it was
dreadful! And she was so afraid that Addie might catch some of it....
Poor Adolphine, what a struggle, especially with all Bertha's
unattainable perfection before her eyes! For they all suffered from
jealousy in their family: she had it herself; and Adolphine had always
had it very strongly-developed from a child: jealous of her elder
sisters and brothers.... Would she ever be able to give Adolphine a word
of advice? Now that Floortje's wedding was near at hand, couldn't she be
of use to Adolphine? She thought it such a pity that her sister--a Van
Lowe, after all--was becoming so common; and, after last night, she was
so afraid of that wedding; and it would be all the worse because
Bertha's Emilie was to be married about the same time, in May, a couple
of months hence. In any case, she would talk to Mamma about it, not for
the sake of interfering, but because Adolphine was her sister, because
she cared for her as a sister and because she had a feeling of pity for
her, genuine, heart-rending pity....

"Mamma, what are you looking at?"

It was Addie's voice; and she saw that the boy had come to sit by her,
because it was her turn now. He always divided his favours like that
between his father and mother. For Van der Welcke at once took up the
_Nieuwe Rotterdammer_ and buried himself in its wide pages, in his
corner.

"Oh, so you've come to sit by me at last!" she whispered.

"Mummy, don't be so jealous: do you want me to chop myself in two?"

He talked to her, amused her. She always admired the way in which he
talked, prettily, sensibly and divertingly, with a sort of talent for
small