ow more! I could neither stay at the Werve nor go away until
my doubts were cleared up.

I went on to the farm, and was soon served with a glass of milk. The
farmer's wife seemed to know all about my visit, and thought it quite
natural for the Freule to send me there for a glass of new milk. She
was loud in her praises of the Freule, said her equal was not to
be found in the whole aristocracy, "so familiar and kind-hearted,
but at times flighty, and then she goes off like a locomotive"--she
pronounced it "leukemetief." But it would be impossible for me to
reproduce her Guelders dialect; and, to confess a truth, I had myself
sometimes great difficulty in understanding her.

She showed me the farm and the dog, a splendid brown pointer who
allowed me to stroke him, probably for his mistress' sake. Once the
good farmer's wife had loosened her tongue, she rattled away with
great volubility--

"Yes, she was sorry the General was no longer their landlord; but
Overberg was not a bad fellow--he had made many repairs, and even
promised to build a new barn which the General would never consent
to. It was a pity for the man! A good gentleman, but he took no
interest in farming; the whole place must have gone to wrack and
ruin if the General had not agreed to sell it before it was too
late. The Freule was sorry, for she liked farming; she had learned to
milk, and talked to the cows just as if they were human beings. And
horses--yes, Jonker, even the plough horses, before they go out into
the field in the morning, she talks to them. My husband was groom to
her grandfather, in his youth; I think I can see the greys she used to
drive with so much pride, and Blount the coachman at her side, as proud
as a king, with his arms folded, and looking as if the team belonged
to him. Oh dear, yes! And now all that grandeur has disappeared. The
beautiful carriage-horses are sold, and the Freule has only her English
horse which my husband stables and grooms for her. What a sin and shame
it is when the gentry fall into such decay! And the family used to be
the greatest in these parts, and good to their tenants. My parents and
grandparents always lived on the estate; but oh, oh! since the marriage
of the eldest Freule Roselaer, they have never prospered. What can I
say? 'A house divided against itself cannot stand,' as the Scriptures
tell us. The Jonker has certainly heard of all these things?"

"Enough, Mrs. Pauwelsen, more than enough," I resp