mutual sympathy, the family-affection which she had always fostered in
her own house, which she still fostered, thanks to the institution of
those Sunday evenings, to keep the children together at all costs. Yes,
in Van Naghel and Bertha that sentiment, that constant thought for the
children was very strong; and there was one thing which Mamma van Lowe
had not done and which Bertha was doing, which was to receive the son
again, after he had once left the house, now that he was returning with
a sick wife and two little children. It touched her: oh, how good they
were to their tribe; and what a thousand pities that that little
doll-wife was so ill! And the children, too, had that same
family-affection among themselves. Otto had always kept up a busy
correspondence with his eldest sister, Louise, who was twenty-five and
came next to him in age; the two Leiden boys were exceedingly nice to
their three fashionable little sisters and Henri was even a little bit
jealous because Emilie was engaged; only Karel was perhaps rather too
much out of doors and away from the family-circle for so young a boy,
with all his clubs and his importance; and, because of that, Marietje,
the youngest girl, of fourteen, was left a good deal alone. And yet they
all liked Marietje: her big brothers, the other girls.... Yes, that was
the charming thing with all those children: the family-affection, the
fondness for one another, the pride in the names of Van Lowe and Van
Naghel, the refusal to suffer any outsider to say a word against a
member of the family, even though criticism was not spared within the
home itself. But that any acquaintance should dare to reflect upon a
member of the family, that they would none of them permit. They had felt
that fondness, that tenderness, even for Constance, because she was a
sister. And the old lady remembered, in so far as concerned Constance,
the philosophical reflexions of her youngest son, Paul; the trouble
which Dorine had taken to assemble all the brothers and sisters on that
first Sunday-evening; the ready compliance of all her children, for, out
of respect to her, none of them had criticized that erring sister in
front of her. She saw it in all of them: the family-affection for one
another. They all felt themselves to be brothers and sisters; they stood
up for one another, even though there were differences of opinion
sometimes and even jealousy; they felt united within the family-circle.

That was the c