“Well, and what of that? So much the better. There’s few things a girl likes more than changing dresses. I’m sure you ought to be thankful you’ve dresses to change.”
Without further reply the girl dropped away into her corner and resumed her interrupted reading. Ursula sat with her hands in her lap. Mevrouw began sorting wools, but presently remembered the guest.
“Harriet,” she called, “why don’t you come and amuse Ursula? You waste all your time over novels. I can’t imagine what you find in them. What’s this you’re reading now? A novel, of course?”
The girl came forward, lazily. “Yes, aunt,” she said.
“What is it? What’s it about?”
“It’s a historical romance called Numa Pompilius, translated from the German. Everybody’s reading it just now.”
“I can’t understand what you find in them. And they’re all alike. It always ends in Pompilius marrying Numa.”
Before Ursula had stopped laughing behind Mevrouw Mopius’s back her uncle came in. Harriet did not laugh.
Mynheer Mopius, though a very secondary personage in this story of the Van Helmonts, would be mortally offended did we not give him a chapter to himself.