nd have a tile loose myself.... So you think we are
a very sensible family? My dear Constance, we have a great crack running
right through us, slanting, like that! But we are nice people and we
don't let the world know. You wait: you'll see. And now, Sissy, here's
your tram and here I leave you..."

He helped her in; and she saw him walk away under his umbrella,
carefully drying with his handkerchief the velvet turn-back cuffs of his
new overcoat.

CHAPTER XIV

Those were busy days at the Van Naghels, full of all kinds of
excitement. Emilie was to be married in three weeks; and in a fortnight
Van Naghel and Bertha expected their son Otto back from India, with his
young wife and their two children.

Otto had taken his degree early, married and gone to Java at twenty-four
with a billet in the civil service. But he was unable to stay, because
his wife had fallen ill on the day of their arrival at Batavia and she
had been ill ever since. It annoyed Van Naghel to see his son's career
interrupted, even though he was still young and Van Naghel could easily
find him another appointment in Holland. But he had always been against
this match: a delicate Dutch girl, with no money. They would have to
take charge of the children, in Holland; and, though he was well off,
though his wife had some money of her own, though he had his salary as a
minister, it was, all told, scarcely enough for the very expensive
establishment which they kept up: the eldest son on his way home from
India with his wife and two children; two boys, Frans and Henri, who had
been at Leiden for over two years and who were obviously in no hurry to
take their degrees; three girls who were all out, the second of whom was
now going to be married; another boy, of sixteen, and a girl of
fourteen; their _salon_, to gratify Van Naghel's ambition, an official
_salon_, a meeting-place for members of the higher government-circles,
while the diplomatic set just passed through it; so expensive an
establishment, from first to last, that Bertha had to work miracles of
economy to keep things going on fifty thousand guilders, more or less, a
year. And everything was growing dearer: the two boys, Frans and Henri,
cost almost three times as much as Otto had cost; Emilie and Marianne,
of whom the former had been out three years and the other just one, had
much grander ideas, in every way, than Louise, who had been out six; the
boys at Leiden were both to take part in th