am very
much afraid it is going to be our last trip for some time. The country
looks quiet enough as you see it from the boat, but the things that are
happening in it would chill your blood."

"Yes," sighed Granny; "if I would let it, my old heart would break over
the sights that I see every day on my way to Malines. But a broken
heart won't get you anywhere. Maybe a stout heart will."

"Who are the children you have with you?" asked Mother De Smet.

Then Granny told her how she had found Jan and Marie, and all the rest
of the sad story. Mother De Smet wiped her eyes and blew her nose very
hard as she listened.

"I wouldn't let them wait any longer by the Antwerp road, anyway," she
said when Granny had finished. "There is no use in the world in looking
for their mother to come that way. She was probably driven over the
border long ago. You just leave them with me to-morrow while you go to
town. 'Twill cheer them up a bit to play with Joseph and the babies."

"Well, now," said Granny, "if that isn't just like your good heart!"

And that is how it happened that, when she trudged off with her barrow
the next morning, the Twins ran down to the boat and spent the day
rolling on the grass with the babies, and helping Father De Smet and
Joseph to load the boat with bags of potatoes which had been brought to
the dock in the night by neighboring farmers.

When Granny came trundling her barrow home in the late afternoon, she
found the children and their new friends already on the best of terms;
and that night, after the Twins were in bed, she went aboard the "Old
Woman" and talked for a long time with Father and Mother De Smet. No
one will ever know just what they said to each other, but it must be
that they talked about the Twins, for when the children awoke the next
morning, they found Granny standing beside their bed with their clothes
all nicely washed and ironed in her hands.

"I'm not going to town this morning with my eels," she said as she
popped them out of bed. "I'm going to stay at home and see you off on
your journey!" She did not tell them that things had grown so terrible
in Malines that even she felt it wise to stay away.

"Our journey!" cried the Twins in astonishment. "What journey?"

"To Antwerp," cried Granny. "Now, you never thought a chance like that
would come to you, I'm sure, but some people are born lucky! You see
the De Smets start back today, and they are willing to take you along
with them!"