o appear as surprised as she was by this too discerning remark. She
was so young that she did not before know that children and child-like
folk sometimes divine by instinct the same conclusions that very
clever people arrive at by much reasoning and observation. She felt
decidedly uncomfortable at this explanation of Joost's frequent
contemplations of herself.

"You seem to think me very clever," she said.

"Of course," he answered simply, "you are clever."

"No, I am not," she returned; "ask your mother; ask Denah Snieder;
they do not think me clever. What can I do, except cook? Oh, yes, and
speak a few foreign language as you can yourself? I cannot paint, or
draw, or sing; I do not understand music; why, when you play Bach, I
wish to go out of the room."

"That is true," he admitted; "I have felt it."

Julia bit her lip; she had never before expressed her opinion of Bach,
and she did not feel in the least gratified that he had found it out
for himself.

"It is absurd to call me clever," she said. "I have little learning
and no accomplishments. I cannot even get on with the crochet work
Denah showed me, and I do not know how to make flowers of paper."

"But why should one make flowers of paper?" he asked, in his serious
way. "They are not at all beautiful."

"Denah makes them beautifully," she answered.

The argument did not seem to carry weight, but Julia advanced no
other; she thought silence the wisest course. They had almost reached
home now; a little before they came to the gate, Joost opened the
subject of herself again. "I think sometimes you must make fun of us;
do you not sometimes in your heart laugh just a little bit?"

"I laugh at everything sometimes," she said; "myself most of all. Do
you never laugh at yourself? I expect not; you are very serious. I
will tell you what it is like: a little goblin comes out of your head
and stands in front of you; the goblin is you, a sort of you; the
other part, the part people know, sits opposite, and the goblin laughs
at it because it sees how ridiculous the other is, how grotesque and
how futile. My goblin came out into my room last night and laughed and
laughed; you would almost have heard him if you had been there."

They had reached the gate now, and as Joost held it open for her to
pass through, she saw that he had blushed to the ears at the lightly
spoken words--if he had been in her room last night; the impropriety
of them to him was evident. For a m