; and several
years passed on.

It happened one day that Koosje was sitting in her shop sewing. In the
large inner room a party of ladies and officers were eating cakes and
drinking chocolates and liquors with a good deal of fun and laughter,
when the door opened timidly, thereby letting in a gust of bitter wind,
and a woman crept fearfully in, followed by two small, crying children.

Could the lady give her something to eat? she asked; they had had
nothing during the day, and the little ones were almost famished.

Koosje, who was very charitable, lifted a tray of large, plain buns, and
was about to give her some, when her eyes fell upon the poor beggar's
faded face, and she exclaimed:

"Truide!"

Truide, for it was she, looked up in startled surprise.

"I did not know, or I would not have come in, Koosje," she said, humbly;
"for I treated you very badly."

"Ve-ry bad-ly," returned Koosje, emphatically. "Then where is Jan?"

"Dead!" murmured Truide, sadly.

"Dead! so--ah, well! I suppose I must do something for you. Here Yanke!"
opening the door and calling, "Yanke!"

"_Je, jevrouw_," a voice cried, in reply.

The next moment a maid came running into the shop.

"Take these people into the kitchen and give them something to eat.
Put them by the stove while you prepare it. There is some soup and that
smoked ham we had for _koffy_. Then come here and take my place for a
while."

"_Je, jevrouw_," said Yanke, disappearing again, followed by Truide and
her children.

Then Koosje sat down again, and began to think.

"I said," she mused, presently, "_that_ night that the next time I
fell over a bundle I'd leave it where I found it. Ah, well! I'm not
a barbarian; I couldn't do that. I never thought, though, it would be
Truide."

"_Hi, jevrouw_," was called from the inner room.

"_Je, mynheer_," jumping up and going to her customers.

She attended to their wants, and presently bowed them out.

"I never thought it would be Truide," she repeated to herself, as
she closed the door behind the last of the gay uniforms and jingling
scabbards. "And Jan is dead--ah, well!"

Then she went into the kitchen, where the miserable children--girls both
of them, and pretty had they been clean and less forlornly clad--were
playing about the stove.

"So Jan is dead," began Koosje, seating herself.

"Yes, Jan is dead," Truide answered.

"And he left you nothing?" Koosje asked.

"We had had nothing for a long time," T