"But, Constance dear," said Gerrit, "if we had only known that you would have liked us to! Remember, you never sent us a line. You only wrote to Mamma; and she did go to see you once or twice. Own up: we had become strangers."
"Let us be friends again, then! Be nice to me! Your dear little wife ... I don't know her.... But you are my sister, too, Adeline, are you not? Be a little fond of me."
"Yes, of course, Constance. And let us see a lot of each other."
"Tell me, Gerrit; what is Bertha like now?"
"Bertha is very nice. Bertha is an exemplary mother, an excellent wife. Bertha has a busy life. They do a great deal of good, they live for their children, they see heaps of people. They are in the upper ten, or, rather, the upper two or three of the Hague. We are not, you know. And we never go to their big dinners; we are not in their set at all."
"I don't even go to Bertha's at-homes," said Adeline.
"And yet we are very good friends. And Bertha is very nice; and, when Adeline is expecting a baby, which is the usual state of affairs with us, Bertha is just like a mother. But she and her husband live in their own circle, which is very big and busy and important and smart and all the rest of it."
"So Adolphine and Van Saetzema...?"
"Oh, you needn't ask: they don't go to their dinners, at-homes, balls, etcetera, either. And that makes Adolphine furious. But we don't care in the least."
"And Aunt and Uncle Ruyvenaer?"