te; and
the result of it all was that when Jan van der Welde came, as he was
accustomed to do nearly every evening, to see Koosje, Miss Truide, from
sheer longing for excitement and change, began to make eyes at him, with
what effect I will endeavour to show.

Just at first Koosje noticed nothing. She herself was of so faithful a
nature that an idea, a suspicion, of Jan's faithlessness never entered
her mind. When the girl laughed and blushed and dimpled and smiled,
when she cast her great blue eyes at the big young fellow, Koosje only
thought how pretty she was, and it was must a thousand pities she had
not been born a great lady.

And thus weeks slipped over. Never very demonstrative herself, Koosje
saw nothing, Dortje, for her part, saw a great deal; but Dortje was a
woman of few words, one who quite believed in the saying, "If speech is
silver, silence is gold;" so she held her peace.

Now Truide, rendered fairly frantic by her enforced confinement to
the house, grew to look upon Jan as her only chance of excitement and
distraction; and Jan, poor, thick-headed noodle of six feet high, was
thoroughly wretched. What to do he knew not. A strange, mad, fierce
passion for Truide had taken possession of him, and an utter distaste,
almost dislike, had come in place of the old love for Koosje. Truide
was unlike anything he had ever come in contact with before; she was so
fairy-like, so light, so delicate, so dainty. Against Koosje's plumper,
maturer charms, she appeared to the infatuated young man like--if he had
ever heard of it he would probably have said like a Dresden china image;
but since he had not, he compared her in his own foolish heart to an
angel. Her feet were so tiny, her hands so soft, her eyes so expressive,
her waist so slim, her manner so bewitching! Somehow Koosje was
altogether different; he could not endure the touch of her heavy hand,
the tones of her less refined voice; he grew impatient at the denser
perceptions of her mind. It was very foolish, very short-sighted; for
the hands, though heavy, were clever and willing; the voice, though a
trifle coarser in accent than Truide's childish tones, would never tell
him a lie; the perceptions, though not brilliant, were the perceptions
of good, every-day common sense. It really was very foolish, for what
charmed him most in Truide was the merest outside polish, a certain ease
of manner which doubtless she had caught from the English aristocrats
whom she h