school as far above those silly, frivolous institutions to which Bertha had sent her children. And, as regards the boys, Adolphine magnified her three boys, Piet, Chris and Jaap: the eldest was to enter the East-Indian civil service; the two others were intended for Breda and Willemsoord, which was better than those two spendthrift Leiden students, who were at it again, wanting some thousands of guilders for their approaching masques, and far better than that lazy lout of a Karel.
Also, Adolphine was always drawing comparisons between her Marietje, a gentle, fair, white-skinned little girl, a bit subdued amid the blatancy of the others, and Bertha’s Marietje: comparisons invariably in her own child’s favour; but now, after Emilie’s wedding with Van Raven, she drew comparisons more particularly between Emilie’s wedding-preparations and all that she, Adolphine, was doing for Floortje and Dijkerhof. And brag and boast as she might, she, the exception among the Van Lowes, the thrifty Adolphine, who counted every twopennybit—where did she get those economical ideas from? Mamma van Lowe would sometimes ask herself—was unable to come within hailing-distance of what Van Naghel and Bertha and the Van Ravens and their friends on both sides had done; she thought it absurd, she thought it flinging money away, she grumbled to herself that everything had gone up so terribly in price: a deep-rooted prudence—an atavistic quality, a mysterious throw-back—disapproved of that luxury of parties, trousseaus, presents, flow-
