a sort of Cinderella, but a sweet, shy, down-trodden, quiet child. . . . But then there were the three boys, so repulsive, so slovenly, so rude. . . . What a crew, what a crew! . . . They had gone to take tea there quietly; but it turned out to be a sort of little evening-party: a regular rabble, as Van der Welcke, who was furious, had said. Two men in dress-coats and white ties; the others running through the entire scale of masculine attire: frock-coats, dinner-jackets, tweeds. Adolphine seemed always to send out ambiguous invitations; and people never knew what they should wear nor whom they would meet. . . . Floortje in a dirty, white, low-necked dress, if you please; Caroline and Marietje in walking-dress; Van Saetzema himself looking like a fat farmer, carrying on in his noisy way with Uncle Ruyvenaer: it was all so vulgar! . . . Aunt Ruyvenaer was always good-natured; and the girls, though very Indian-looking, were pleasant and natural and simple; but, for the rest, the evening, with all sorts of strangers, was a snare, especially for Van der Welcke, whom, as a brother-in-law, they might surely have welcomed in a more intimate and heartier fashion the first time they saw him, after refusing, for years, to recognize him as a member of the family! And, once back in the hotel, she had had a violent scene with her husband: he abusing that rabble of a family of hers, she, defending her family, against her own conviction, until Addie woke, got out of bed and begged them to be quiet, or he wouldn’t be able to sleep. . . . The darling, how prettily
