en't I? Then let's go!"

Well, they would take the house after he had been to the fat man. There
was nothing else to be done, though it was risky.

Papa came downstairs with Grandpapa, looking more cheerful: perhaps he
had been talking to his father. They sat on a little longer and Papa
took out his watch once or twice....

Then the carriage drove up; the old coachman, who had known Papa as a
small boy, drove them to the station, where they arrived twenty minutes
too soon.

Quietly, without speaking, they walked up and down, waiting for the
train....

CHAPTER XII

Next morning, Addie went to play with Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline's
children and thought it very jolly to romp about like that with six or
seven little boy- and girl-cousins, the oldest a girl of eight years and
the youngest a baby ten months old. He amused himself in a fatherly
fashion with all these youngsters, inventing new games and causing a
certain sensation as a big, new, strong cousin of thirteen. The whole
morning, however, he was thinking of the fat man, to whom he had been
very early to say that Papa would probably take the house and would like
him to call at the Hotel des Indes at seven o'clock that evening. He had
gone on to Uncle Gerrit's from there, and in his heart thought it rather
a bore, for, after all, he must prepare Papa and Mamma for the visit of
the fat man, who was to bring a draft of the lease with him. So, after
eating a sandwich at Aunt Adeline's, he played a little longer with the
children, who were not going out, because it was raining, and, soon
after, hurried to the Alexanderstraat, to Granny van Lowe's, where he
knew that he would find Mamma. Constance was sitting with her mother and
telling her about Papa and Mamma van der Welcke and how they had
received her. Uncle Paul was there. Addie, a little nervous, asked where
Papa was, where Papa had gone that afternoon.

"Papa went to look at a couple of houses in the
Nassau-Dillenburgstraat.... Did you enjoy yourself at Uncle Gerrit's?"

"Oh, yes, they are nice little things. What are you doing this
afternoon, Mamma?"

"I shall stay on a little with Granny and then we are both going to
Uncle and Aunt Ruyvenaer's. Will you come too, Addie?"

"Well, I really want to talk to Papa."

She was jealous at once:

"You can never be a moment without your father. What does it mean? I
haven't seen you the whole morning; and the first thing you do is to ask
for Papa! I