Summer came suddenly: fine, sunny days followed one after the other, all the windows in the big house were opened and the summer seemed to enter and drive everything of winter out of the open windows. The spreading garden became closely leaved with a green and gold triumph of dense foliage which, lightly stirred by the wind, cast shadows over the pond, with a play of alternating flecks of light and shade. Van der Welcke, strolling along the paths, found pleasure in watching Klaasje, the big girl of thirteen, tearing round the water, pursued by Jack, the new terrier, who barked and barked incessantly with his sharp, throaty bark.
"She is still just like a child," thought Van der Welcke, "and she is developing like a little woman. It is strange, the influence which Addie has over her . . . and the way the child is perking up now that the fine days have come. But it is not only the fine days, it is Addie above all that gives her this balance: what's it through, I wonder? Purely through his influence, through a sort of healing magic that flows from him. . . . It is very strange. The other day, I had a terrible headache; and, when he came and just gave me a little massage, it was gone, quite. . . . And the way the fellow has succeeded in developing the child's mind, with those picture-books, with those coloured things: it's as though he wanted to affect her by means of colours and glitterings and I don't know what. In any case, it came off; she is really learning her lessons very well; and everything she says is more reason-
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