wice, in this very early life, been
fished out of those same slimy, stagnant waters; had wandered under the
great lindens in the Baan, and gazed curiously up at the stork's nest
in the tree by the Veterinary School; had pattered about the
hollow-sounding streets in her noisy wooden _klompen_; had danced and
laughed, had quarrelled and wept, and fought and made friends again,
to the tune of the silver chimes high up in the Dom--chimes that were
sometimes old _Nederlandsche_ hymns, sometimes Mendelssohn's melodies
and tender "Lieder ohne Worte."

But that was ever so long ago, and now she had left her romping
childhood behind her, and had become a maid-servant--a very dignified
and aristocratic maid-servant indeed--with no less a sum than eight
pounds ten a year in wages.

She lived in the house of a professor, who dwelt on the Munster
Kerkhoff, one of the most aristocratic parts of that wonderfully
aristocratic city; and once or twice every week you might have seen her,
if you had been there to see, busily engaged in washing the red tile
and blue slate pathway in front of the professor's house. You would have
seen that she was very pleasant to look at, this Koosje, very comely
and clean, whether she happened to be very busy, or whether it had been
Sunday, and, with her very best gown on, she was out for a promenade in
the Baan, after duly going to service as regularly as the Sabbath dawned
in the grand old Gothic choir of the cathedral.

During the week she wore always the same costume as does every other
servant in the country: a skirt of black stuff, short enough to show a
pair of very neat-set and well-turned ankles, clad in cloth shoes and
knitted stockings that showed no wrinkles; over the skirt a bodice and
a kirtle of lilac, made with a neatly gathered frilling about her round
brown throat; above the frilling five or six rows of unpolished garnet
beads fastened by a massive clasp of gold filigree, and on her head a
spotless white cap tied with a neat bow under her chin--as neat, let me
tell you, as an Englishman's tie at a party.

But it was on Sunday that Koosje shone forth in all the glory of a black
gown and her jewellery--with great ear-rings to match the clasp of her
necklace, and a heavy chain and cross to match that again, and one or
two rings; while on her head she wore an immense cap, much too big to
put a bonnet over, though for walking she was most particular to have
gloves.

Then, indeed, she was