e daughter of Potiphar; but nowhere do we read that his spouse was
already dead when he went into the corn business. Therefore, Juffrouw
Laps, if it is your earnest desire to have a pious poem written on
your uncle, I advise you to go to my pupil, Klaasje van der Gracht."

He explained to her where that prodigy might be found.

Again I must beg pardon if my criticism of Pennewip is too severe; but
he gave me reasons enough to harbor ugly suspicions against him. I am
convinced that he would have written that poem for Juffrouw Laps if
her uncle had received a white silk coat from the king, or had ever
driven through The Hague in a royal carriage. But to sing an agent in
verse! He would leave that to the genius of "the flying tea-kettle"
in the Peperstraat. That was not nice of Pennewip. Was that uncle
to blame because his brothers never threw him into a well? or sold
him into Egypt? Or because he couldn't interpret dreams? Or because
cleverness is not rewarded to-day with rings, white coats, carriages
and high official position?

Juffrouw Laps footed it over to the Peperstraat, where she made
the acquaintance of the elder van der Gracht. The old gentleman
felt flattered.

He was most gracious, and assured the Juffrouw that the poem should
be written that very evening. Klaasje could bring it over the next
morning and repeat it to Juffrouw Laps, and if it were found worthy
as an expression of her feelings toward her uncle, then Klaasje was
to be invited to be present on that evening. The father assured her
that Klaasje would wear a white stand-up collar.

"Just like Joseph," said the Juffrouw. "Everything is in the Bible."

When she got home she read the forty-first chapter of Genesis,
trying to find the relation of Klaasje's apotheosis to Joseph's
exaltation. That night she dreamed she had a mantle in her hand.

CHAPTER XVI

It was the afternoon of the day on which Juffrouw Laps sought out
Klaasje van der Gracht, and Walter was lying in bed, still weak but
no longer delirious. The doctor had ordered rest and quiet. The child
counted the flowers in the curtain, and, in his imagination tried
to arrange them in some other order. He allowed them to jump over
one another, or flow into one another. He saw in them faces, forms,
armies, clouds--and all were alive and moving. It was tiresome, but
he couldn't do anything else. If he turned his face toward the wall
it was still worse. The hieroglyphic scratches on th