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180 And now the little soul has found the grain, hasn't it?"

"I think so, Auntie . . . but under . . . under all these small, everyday things . . . a great deal of melancholy remains. . . . Perhaps it's wrong; perhaps it oughtn't to be so. . . ."

"But, if there are things in one's past, if we have lived before, dear, then there is always a certain melancholy and we all have our share of it . . . just because we feel deeply, very deeply perhaps, under our dark skies . . . and because our feeling always remains . . . and our melancholy too. . . ."

"Perhaps so, Auntie. . . . And so it goes on and we drift on. . . . You see, there are good things in life. . . . Tell me, doesn't it occur to you that you have found . . ."

"What?"

"What you came to look for, years ago, in Holland . . . after you had been abroad so long, Auntie, and felt so home-sick for your own country and for warmth . . . the warmth of family-affection. . . . Tell me, Auntie, doesn't it occur to you that you have found it now: the country, our grey, dark country . . . and everything that you used to long for? . . . Are we not all round you: even we, though we live some way off? . . . Are we not all, nearly all of us around you?"

"Yes, dear."

"And are you happy now?"

"Yes, dear."

"I hear something in your voice that contradicts your words. Tell me, what is it?"

"I'm frightened . . . I'm frightened."

"And you have found so much, you have found everything! What . . . what are you frightened of?"