her that the good soul had had a nervous breakdown after being told of Henri's sudden death, about which no one knew any details? Toetie arrived very late and said that Mamma had a little headache. As for Constance, not one of the children would have dared to say that she and Van der Welcke had gone to Paris by the night-mail at six o'clock, as soon as they could after Emilie's telegram. Gerrit wanted to go with them, but he was ill and had hardly said a word to Adeline about the telegram when he returned home from the Kerkhoflaan. He had got into bed shivering, thinking that he had a feverish attack, influenza or something. The daughters also thought it better not to tell Mamma that Gerrit was ill; and Mamma did not even ask after Gerrit, though she missed him and Adeline and thought that her rooms looked very empty.
Where could they be? the old woman wondered. None of Bertha's little tribe; the old sisters not there; Constance not there; Gerrit not there; Auntie Lot not there: where were they all? the old woman kept wondering. How big her rooms looked, what a shivery feeling the card-tables gave her, with the markers, with the cards spread out in an S! Well, if there were no children left, it was not worth while having the table put out for the round games in the conservatory, at least not until Gerrit's children were bigger, until a new warmth sur-
