Small Souls

A few mornings later, when Constance woke, she remembered that it was Saturday; and, with the apprehension which had kept her nerves on the rack all the week long, she said to h...

The Van Naghels gave an evening-party at the Oude Doelen Hotel, two days subsequent to the signing of the marriage-contract between Emilie and Van Raven: a dinner, for relations...

Dorine van Lowe lived by herself in a boarding-house, though old Mrs. van Lowe had a large house in the Alexanderstraat. Their friends all thought this odd; and Dorine was a lit...

After the summer holidays, Addie, who was now in the third class at the Grammar School, sometimes went to his Van Saetzema cousins on a Sunday afternoon, rather against the grai...

Constance made it a duty to go often to Adolphine's during Floortje's wedding-preliminaries. She went out of her way to be cordial; she sent a beautiful basket of flowers on the...

Yes, she had longed for them all, for her home and for Holland! Oh, the passionate longing of those last years, ever and ever more passionate! Oh, how lonely she had been, and h...

"Then wouldn't it be better, Cateau, for you to go alone first: then I can call on Van der Welcke later. Or do you think I ought to wait until Van der Welcke has been to see me?"

Constance, when she was alone, burst into a fit of nervous sobbing.... Oh, that past, that wretched past, which always clung to her, which there was no shaking off! She thought...

Two days later, Van der Welcke, Constance and Addie were in the train on their way to Driebergen. The boy, to whom Holland was a new country, was interested in the vague, dim, l...

And in her room she hardly slept for nervousness about the great event that was to happen on the morrow. All the night through, while the wind moaned against the panes, she lay...

"So you're thinking of being presented at Court next winter?" said Van Vreeswijck, who had been a chum of Henri's at Leiden and who was now a chamberlain-extraordinary to the Qu...

Those were busy days at the Van Naghels, full of all kinds of excitement. Emilie was to be married in three weeks; and in a fortnight Van Naghel and Bertha expected their son Ot...

In the same nervous mood in which she had been all day, Constance hurried, after dinner, to the Bezuidenhout, taking the tram along the Scheveningsche Weg and another to the Ple...

Constance' eyelashes trembled and her lips contracted. She would have liked to make an excuse, to say that she was not at home; but she refrained because of the maid:

Adolphine enjoyed showing Cateau Floortje's trousseau, with its stacks of linen. Adolphine attached more importance to her own house, her own children, her own furniture, her ow...

They stepped from the carriage; the hall-door opened. The curtains of the front room shook slightly, as though with the trembling touch of an old hand; but there was no one in t...

Constance, after this talk with Bertha, for days felt easier in her mind, as though filled with an indefinable contentment that bid fair to soothe and heal. Yes, she hoped that,...

Marietje van Saetzema stood at the window and looked out into the street. She looked down the whole street, because the house, a corner-house, stood not in the length of it, but...

That evening, Constance played bridge, though her head was still very bad. At Mamma van Lowe's request, she had brought Addie with her; and he had joined his boy- and girl-cousi...

No, Van der Welcke could never have imagined it! He was sorry now that he had told his father so much, seeing how shocked the old man was. And, though he tried to find soothing...

The old man said nothing and went on reading, as though he had not heard; and his wife did not press for an answer. But, at nightfall, when they sat staring at the dark summer e...

Next day, Emilie and Marianne van Naghel were hard at work in their boudoir. They shared a sitting-room between them; Louise, the eldest sister, had one to herself. Emilie was t...

The furniture arrived from Brussels; and Constance found it delightful to arrange her house near the Woods. She had never expected to be so happy, just because she was back in h...

It was the middle of November; and Constance remembered that Bertha's second at-home day was on the third Tuesday of the month. The next number of the _Dwarskijker_ was due in a...

It was pouring with rain; and Dorine van Lowe was tired out when, by way of a last visit, she dropped in on Karel and Cateau just before dinner. But Dorine was pleased with hers...

Constance was happy. She began to realize more and more that she now had what she had missed for years: her family; she held it a privilege dearer every day that she was back in...

The old woman walked with slow steps along the paths of the garden, carefully examining each separate rose with her grey eyes. Her legs seemed to move with difficulty along the...

The boy had grown serious. For that little incident represented more to him than a quarrel with a cousin about a word of abuse: it had suddenly opened a window to him, who was a...

He gave her a kiss, but she pouted, said she would go alone, in the Scheveningen tram, which would take her to Granny's door. But he drew her down upon his little knees:

She went with Dorine through the drawing-room, past the card-tables.... She noticed that the conversation at once stopped at the table where Adolphine and Uncle Ruyvenaer were p...

"You see," he said, glad to have some one to listen to him for the first time in his life, "what I call human wretchedness is not confined to the social question, but exists eve...

But he did not tell him that day. He merely persuaded himself that it was not necessary, that it would even be wrong to tell his son, his child, who was still so young, the past...

Van Der Welcke kept himself under control that Sunday evening for Mamma van Lowe's sake, but he was really shocked at Addie's concern and by the calumnies that appeared to be st...

Adolphine looked enviously around her. What a lot Constance must spend on her clothes; and it was not as if they were well off either, for all they had to live on was an allowan...

Next morning, Addie went to play with Uncle Gerrit and Aunt Adeline's children and thought it very jolly to romp about like that with six or seven little boy- and girl-cousins,...

They embraced; Van der Welcke was much moved, because it was fifteen years since he had been in Holland. Addie helped Papa with his luggage, like a man; and they drove away in a...

In a small town like the Hague, the sudden appearance of Constance and her husband, after many years, could not but be the occasion for an interchange of gossip that was not eas...

Constance was much alone during those days. She was even more lonely than she had ever been in Brussels--when Van der Welcke was away about his wines or his insurances--because...

"I was thinking of you to-day," she said. "I had a lot of errands to do, for Bertha; and so, as I was going through the town, I thought to myself, 'I'll go on to Duinoord and se...