lantly, so very differently from Chris and Piet and Jaap.
“The Italian wasn’t here last Sunday.”
“Then he’s sure to come to-day.”
“He always comes once a fortnight.”
“That’s the Italian fashion.”
“Why do you boys always call Addie the Italian?” asked Marietje.
Now the three burst with laughing:
“That’s nothing to do with you.”
“Little girls shouldn’t ask questions.”
“I think it a silly nickname,” said Marietje, “and it means nothing.”
They burst out laughing again, full of importance and worldly wisdom.
“That’s because you don’t know.”
“If you knew, you’d think it witty enough.”
“It’s a damned witty nickname.”
“Chris, what language!”
“So you want to know why Addie is an Italian?”
She shrugged her shoulders, played the grown-up sister:
“I think you’re silly, just like children. That nickname means nothing.”
They burst with laughter once more:
“Don’t you know what they do in Italy?”
“In Rome?”
She looked at them, her louts of brothers; she vaguely remembered incautiously-whispered remarks about Aunt Constance, about the time when she was still the wife of the Netherlands minister at
