"This is Aunt Constance, who has come to make your acquaintance,
Frances. But Frances, you're still in your _sarong_ and _kabaai_!"[16]

"Isn't that allowed, Granny? How d'ye do, Aunt?"

"Child, how Indian you've become in these few years!" cried the old
lady, angrier than Constance remembered ever seeing her. "How is it
possible, how is it possible! Have you forgotten Holland? In March, with
the window open, in a tearing draught, with both the children, you in
_sarong_ and _kabaai_ and Huig in a little shirt! Do you want to kill
yourself and the children? _Baboe_, put a _baadje_ on _sinjo_![17]
Frances, Frances, I spent years and years in India, but even in India I
was nearly always dressed; and, when I came back to Holland, I had not
forgotten Holland in the way in which you, a purely Dutch girl, have
forgotten it in these few years!"

The old woman had taken the child on her own lap and was dressing it
more warmly.

"Grandmamma, how you're grumbling.... It'd be better if you told cook to
make Ottelientje's _boeboer_[18] properly: the child can't eat that
starch they give her. And she told _baboe_ that she had no time to cook
it differently. The whole house has gone mad because Emilie is getting
married. We really can't stay here, on the top floor at Papa and
Mamma's."

"Frances, dress yourself first, or I shall get really angry."

"_Allah_, Grandmamma!" cried Frances, irritably; but, when Constance
gave her the same advice, she flung a wrapper over her _sarong_ and
_kabaai_ and remained like that, with her bare feet in slippers.

"No wonder you're always ill!" grumbled Grandmamma, still busying
herself with the child.

"Oh, Aunt Constance, I wonder if you would run down to the kitchen and
tell cook that Ottelientje can't have her _boeboer_ made like that?"

"My dear Frances," laughed Constance, "the cook has never seen me, nor I
her: and, if I went to her kitchen and talked about the _boeboer_, she
would only turn me out."

"What a country to live in, Holland!" cried Frances. "My child is
starving for food!"

"I'll go down to Mamma, if you like...."

"Yes, do, would you?"

Constance went downstairs. In the boudoir, Emilie, in her wedding-dress,
was standing in front of a long glass. The heavy white satin crushed
her, looked hard and cruel upon her, now that her hair was not done and
she tired and pale.

"The bodice doesn't fit. It will simply have to go back to Brussels,"
said Bertha.

"It's sicke