Mamma, at Baarn. Lord, how could Mamma go and live here, in such a house! It would come tumbling down on her head one day, with that everlasting rumble of the trains. She simply could not get away from the rumble of the trains. . . . Marianne said that Mamma did not mind it and that she herself had become so used to the noise that once, when there was an accident at Hilversum and the something p.m. train did not arrive at Baarn, she had woke up because of the unwonted silence! Well, that was a bit stiff, thought Marietje. Still, perhaps the rumble of the trains did keep Mamma and Marianne from going to sleep. For what a life it was, in this little villa at Baarn! Neither Mamma nor Marianne knew anybody; and they saw nobody. They had no carriage; and how can one live in the country without keeping a carriage? Even if it was only a dog-cart, or a governess-car, with a pony; but you must have something. . . . It was a rotten way of living. A brilliant idea of Uncle Adolf's, wasn't it, to insist that she should come and bury herself here for a whole mortal month and bore herself to death with Mamma and Marianne! . . . Karel hadn't come, the brute! Oh no, he had gone to Uncle's. Marietje knew why: because Uncle wanted to keep an eye on him! So she didn't even see her brother. . . . Oh, how dull it all was! . . . Silly little walks to the Beukenkom, to Soestdijk: once in a way, there'd be the excitement of
