Page:Dr Adriaan (1918).djvu/203

Rh "But when they are . . . they are taken out in the rain!" said Mary, reproachfully.

Paul was there, playing softly on the piano. Ernst was there; and it was very strange to see the friends which he had silently made with Klaasje. Together they looked in her picture-books: the unnaturally old queer man and the unnaturally young child.

"I can read now," said the backward girl of thirteen, very proudly.

"Really?" said Uncle Ernst.

"Yes, Uncle Addie is teaching me to read. Look, in these books, with pretty letters, blue, yellow, red. That's violet. And that, Uncle Addie says, is purple. That's purple: a lovely colour, purple. Uncle Addie teaches me to read."

And laboriously she spelt out the highly coloured words.

"So Uncle Addie teaches you to read with coloured letters?" asked Ernst.

"Yes, I don't like black letters. And look at my books: all with beautiful pictures. That's a king and a queen. It's a fairy-tale, Uncle. This is a fairy. The king and queen are purple . . . purple; and the fairy—look, Uncle, look at the fairy—is sky-blue. Uncle Addie says it's a-zure."

She drew out the word in a long, caressing voice, as though the names of the colours had a peculiar meaning for her, rousing in her strange memories of very early colours, colours seen in gay, faraway countries, down, down yonder. . ..

"Mr. Brauws won't come," said Emilie.

"No, it's raining too hard," said Adeline. "He won't come this evening."

"He's become so much one of the family."

The evening passed quietly; the old grandmother and Klaasje were taken and put to bed; but, because