nt Willem. Miss a circus? Miss Billy
Miller's Big Show? Not I. _You_ may be too old for such follies, Fritz.
But I'll never be."

"But, sir," said Frederik, "in case you should be taken ill----"

"I won't be."

"With no companion but that half-witted----"

"Willem is not half-witted. He has as much sense as any boy of his age.
And more, in many ways. Why do you dislike him so, Fritz?"

"Dislike him?" echoed Frederik uneasily. "I don't. Why should I?"

"When you came back from Europe and found him living with us," pursued
Grimm, "you seemed annoyed. He tried to make friends with you at first.
But you seemed always to rebuff him. Why? He's a lovable, interesting
little chap. One would think you had some strong prejudice against
him--or some reason----"

"Why, of course not. How could I have? The boy is nothing to me, one way
or another, Uncle. As you're so fond of him, I'd be glad to do anything
I could for him. As there's nothing I _can_ do, and as he seems actually
afraid of me, for some silly childish reason or other, I let him alone."

Grimm's attention had already wandered and that same new look which
Willem had first detected crept back into his lined face. But the sight
of Kathrien coming in from her preparations for the one o'clock dinner
brought him back to himself.

"Katje!" he hailed her. "Do you want to go to the circus with Willem and
me?"

"_Ja!_" she laughed joyously. "_Natuerlich._"

"Good! One more member of the family who is no more grown up than I am!
I want to see Mademoiselle Zarella, the human fly, and----"

He stopped to light the big meerschaum he had just filled. Then, going
over to his favourite big armchair--a Dutch importation of a hundred
years earlier, with pulpit back and high solid arms--he settled himself
comfortably in it.

Peter Grimm was tired. And he wanted to think over the news he had so
recently heard;--to dissect and analyse it and, if need be, to adjust
himself to its awesome import. He sat back with half-closed eyes,
puffing now and then mechanically at his pipe, his veiled glance resting
here, there, and everywhere among the surroundings he loved.

The stable clock chimed the noon hour. The big, slow-swinging arms of
the windmill slackened motion and stood still. A hush was in the air.
The warm, lazy, wonderful hush of summer noon.

The midday sunlight gushed in unchecked through the wide windows,
flooding the room with a glory of hazy golden light; bathing the