"Dolf," replied Riekje, "I shall love you till death."
"I am two years older than you are, Riekje. When you were ten I was twelve, and I think I loved you then, but not so much as now."
"No, dear, you have only known me since last May. All the rest is not true. Tell me, Dolf, that all the rest is not true. I must hear it, that I may love you without any feeling of shame." As Riekje leaned against her husband's breast, she threw herself back a little, and it was evident that she would soon be a mother.
"Come, children," cried maman Nelle, "it 's time now to make the batter."
She reached down an iron pan, lined with shining white enamel, poured in the flour, the eggs, and the milk. After turning up her sleeves over her brown arms, she whipped all vigorously together. When she had beaten the batter well, she placed the pan on a chair near the fire and covered it with a cloth that it might rise. Tobias took down the frying-pan, greased it with a little lard, and put it on the stove for a moment to warm, so that the batter might brown all over equally.
Riekje and Dolf, sitting side by side on the same bench, took some apples from a basket, cored, and afterwards sliced them. Then Nelle went slyly to fetch a second saucepan from the cupboard and placed it on the fire; she poured
