Buitenzorg. Yes, she was an interesting child then, Gerrit always said: there was something so nice about her; she was full of imagination; and it was curious to hear this great, heavy hussar going into ecstasies over that little sister of the old days: a frail, fair-haired little girl, in her white baadje; she used to walk on her pretty little bare feet over the boulders and invent all sorts of fables and fairy-tales, which her elder brothers were not quite capable of understanding and yet had to play at, good-humouredly, for the two brothers were very fond of their little sister. Yes, Gerrit always said, he had not understood until afterwards how much poetry there was in Constance in the days when she dreamed those stories, those fables, in which she often played a fairy, or a poetri out of the Javanese legends: at such times, she would wreathe her hair with a garland of broad leaves; she would look like Ophelia, in the water, decked with tropical blossoms; and the brothers must needs follow the tiny bare feet and the fancies of their little sister, who looked marvellously charming as she ran over the great rocks, ran through the foaming water, ran in crystal green shadows, which quivered over the river, under the heavy awning of the foliage. Yes, that had left a great impression on Gerrit; and he often talked about it:
“Constance, do you remember? What a nice little girl you were then, though you were a little queer! . . .”
Until Constance would laugh and ask if she was no longer nice now that she no longer ran about bare-
