But her eyes and lips trembled. She saw, however, the concern overcasting the features of all of them—except Mathilde—and she now mastered herself entirely, though the tremor remained, very deep down within her.
"Yes," she replied, in a gentler voice, "we are really rather busy here . . . all sorts of things, you know. Of course, Adolphine, it is comforting to feel that you are all there . . . at the Hague . . . in case anything should happen to Ernst."
The tension was relaxed, the luncheon ended quietly; only Adolphine said:
"Is this home-made jelly? . . . Why do you have it made so sweet, Constance?"
In her secret heart she thought the sweet jelly delicious.
"Aunt Adolphine wants to talk to you, Addie," said Constance, when the meal was over.
Adolphine now felt very humble. Yes, she would like to talk to Addie; and she went out with him alone.
"She's come about Marietje," said Constance, when Adolphine and Addie had left the room.
"But why didn't she write," asked Van der Welcke, "instead of coming down?"
Suddenly the sound of Adolphine's sobbing reached their ears from the next room.
"Is Marietje really bad, Auntie?" asked the girls.
And they sat expectantly. The voices of Adolphine and Addie sounded one against the other from behind the folding-doors. They listened in spite of themselves.
"She must certainly change her present environment," said Addie.
Adolphine sobbed:
