st night. His instinct of chivalry would have prevented him
from mentioning the details of the Laps affair, which, after all,
had only been an ineffective attack.

He began again; but the doctor interrupted him before he had hardly
mentioned the fried potatoes.

"Yes, such things happen to everybody. That doesn't amount to
anything. The thing for young people to do--and for old people,
too--is to work. It seems to be rather windy."

That was true. If it had only been as windy yesterday.

"Do you like pictures?" asked Holsma, when they had left the carriage
and were entering his home.

"Of course!"

"Good! Just go into that room. Look at everything as long as you
please."

The doctor pushed him into the room, then ran through the hall and
up the stairs to prepare the family for Walter's reception.

Walter found little pleasure in paintings. He had had no training
in art. For him, a man with a dog and a hare was merely a man with a
dog and a hare. He felt that a poem ought to have been written about
it all; then it would have been intelligible. His glance fell on the
portrait of a woman, or a queen, or a fairy, or a mayor's daughter.

Femke!

Instead of the North Holland cap she wore a diadem of sparkling stars,
or rays of----

"Dinner is ready, and papa and mamma invite you to come out to the
dining-room. Are you still sore after your fall?" It was little
Sietske.

"I didn't fall."

"I mean from your fall on the table in the coffee-house. How
comical! Well, if you are all right again, we're going out this
evening--papa, mamma, William, Hermann, you, I--all! We're going to
the theatre!"

Sietske had understood her orders.

"Going out?--to the theatre? But my mother----"

"Papa will attend to that. Don't worry; he will arrange everything."

Once out in the hall, Walter hesitated again. He motioned to Sietske
and took her back into the room.

"Sietske, who is that?"

"That is a great-great-great-great-grandmother of ours."

"But she looks like----"

"Like Femke! Of course. Like me, too. When Hermann puts on such a
cap you can't tell him from Femke. Come, now. We mustn't keep mamma
waiting."

On entering the dining-room Walter was met by that quiet cordiality
that the doctor had prescribed. When all were seated Sietske mentioned
the picture again in apologizing to Walter for hurrying him away
from it.

"Yes," remarked the doctor quietly, "there is some resemblance;
but Femke is not so pretty