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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
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