elf and
muttered out loud. She grumbled at the rain, grumbled at all the trouble
which Mamma had given her that day, sending her to all the brothers and
sisters, for Constance' sake.... And you'd see, Constance wouldn't even
be grateful to her, Constance would think it only natural.... Every one
always thought it only natural, that Dorine should run about for the
family; and no one was ever really grateful.... Every one was selfish,
Mamma included.... Well, she would try it herself one day, being selfish
... and sit all day long by her fire, as Karel always did ... and live
only for herself, for her own pleasure ... and leave them all to their
fate.... Just imagine, supposing, to-morrow, she were to say to Bertha
and Adolphine, whose girls were soon to be married, that she had no time
to go on everybody's errands.... It was always Dorine: Dorine could do
it all; Dorine didn't mind the rain; Dorine had to be in the Veenestraat
anyhow.... Running about, running about, running about, without
stopping, all out of sheer, silly good-nature; and who thanked her for
it? Nobody! Not Mamma, nor Bertha, nor Adolphine.... It was all taken as
a matter of course! Well, she would like to see their faces to-morrow,
if she said, "I've no time, you know;" or "I'm staying at home to-day;"
or, "I'm feeling rather tired." Dorine feeling tired! What next!

Still grumbling, she rang the bell at Mamma's, in the Alexanderstraat;
she took off her things in the hall. And now she emerged from her long
cloak, a lean and wiry little woman of thirty-five, with a thin and
sallow face, her breast shrunk within a painfully tight, dark-silk
blouse; her dull, mud-coloured hair drawn tightly from her forehead into
a knot at the back; very thin, with no hips, with not a single rounded
line and with those dark eyes of the Van Lowes, which in her were bright
and intelligent, but with an odd sort of silent reproach and secret
discontent at the back of them, as though brooding under her glance.
Withal she had retained something very young and girlish, something
innocent and gay and lively. While pulling off her gloves, she spoke
pleasantly to the servant, made a playful remark about the wet weather.
She felt her hair, to see if it was smooth and drawn back properly, and
tripped up the stairs with a swinging gait, her shoulders bobbing up and
down, her legs wide apart. There was now something quite young and
unconstrained in that gay liveliness of hers.

She fo