ave been irreconcilable with that narrowness
which with him took the place of conscience.

"You see, mother, there are comedies and comedies. Some are sad,
some funny. Some are all nonsense, and there's nothing to be learned
from them; but there are comedies so sad that the people wail when
they see them--even respectable people!"

"Is it possible!"

"Yes, and then there are others where there's music and singing. They
are nice, and moral too. They are called operas; and people who
are entirely respectable go there. You see, mother, there's nothing
bad about it; and we ought not to be so narrow. The old Greeks had
comedies, and our professors still study them."

"Is it possible!"

"Walter's pictures are from real comedies; but I can't tell all the
details now. I will only say there are good comedies."

"You must tell Juffrouw Laps. She always says----"

"And what does she know about it? She never saw a comedy in her life."

That was the truth; but it was just as true of the Pieterse
family--with the exception of Leentje.

One afternoon Leentje had complained of a terrible headache and
had left off sewing and gone out. Later it was learned that she had
not spent the evening with her mother; and then there was a perfect
storm. But Leentje would not say where she had been that night. "That
night" was Juffrouw Pieterse's expression, though she knew that the
girl was at home by eleven o'clock. Leentje betrayed nothing. She
had promised the dressmaker next door not to say anything; for the
dressmaker had to be very careful, because her husband was a hypocrite.

In Leentje's work-box was found a mutilated program; and then one day
she began to sing a song she had never sung before--"I'm full of honor,
I'm full of honor; oh, yes, I'm a man of honor!"

And then it was all out! She had been to the Elandstraat and had seen
the famous Ivan Gras in a comedy!

Leentje began to cry and was going to promise never to do so again,
when, to her amazement, she was told that there was nothing wrong in
it, and that even the greatest professors went to see comedies.

And now she must tell them about it.

It was "The Child of Love," by Kotzebue, that had greeted her
astonished eyes.

"There was music, Juffrouw, and they played beautifully; and then the
curtain went up, and there was a great forest, and a woman wept under
a tree. There was a Baron who made her son a prisoner, because he was
a hunter--but he spoke so nice, and