an official salon, a meeting-place for members of the higher government-circles, while the diplomatic set just passed through it; so expensive an establishment, from first to last, that Bertha had to work miracles of economy to keep things going on fifty thousand guilders, more or less, a year. And everything was growing dearer: the two boys, Frans and Henri, cost almost three times as much as Otto had cost; Emilie and Marianne, of whom the former had been out three years and the other just one, had much grander ideas, in every way, than Louise, who had been out six; the boys at Leiden were both to take part in the masque this year; Emilie was receiving a trousseau that cost three times as much as the one which Bertha had had in her day from Papa and Mamma van Lowe; Marianne must have her simplest dresses lined with silk; Karel, the schoolboy, a tall, thin, weakly lad, but nevertheless a member of all sorts of football-, cricket- and tennis-clubs, had an allowance for pocket-money that was positively ridiculous; and Bertha saw tendencies in her youngest girl that made her anxious for the future. And so, outwardly, it was a great house full of movement: Papa a minister, the girls presented at Court, the boys spending money lustily; and, inwardly, there was many a despondent conversation between Van Naghel and Bertha as to how they could possibly economize: of course, Otto must be helped first; the boys, of course, must take their degrees first; the girls, of course, were bound to go out; and Karel, of course, was obliged to keep up his football- and
