“Goodness, what a hullaballoo to raise about a few pinches of snuff! The Master will repay it seven times seventy times. Whatever ye have done to the least of my brothers——”
With this consoling passage on her lips she took her leave of the astonished family.
Yes, it wasn’t so easy to see through Juffrouw Laps!
Chapter XXIV
In his efforts to reconcile the various conflicting authorities contesting for supremacy in his soul, Walter threw himself into a severe spell of blues. He was not conscious of the contrast between the world of his high-flown fancy and the earthy environment of his home-life. The sympathetic care which he should have received after his illness had not fallen to his lot.
He felt dejected.
“Femke!” he thought; and he longed for her fresh healthy face, for her pure, unselfish glance, for her friendly smile. The Fancy that had led him away to the stars in search of his misty sister had got lodged on that girl of the Amsterdam lowlands, Femke—with her unpoetical length, breadth, thickness, and weight.
“I am going to see her,” he cried. “I will! And if Mrs. Claus asks me about worms a dozen times, it’s all the same to me; I am going to see her!”
Walter reached the house and knocked. “Come in!” someone called. This was a little sudden, for it took some time to get hold of the latch. But Walter did it. Perhaps he was thinking of Missolonghi.