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118 “A couple of houses farther on, there are two very nice little boys: you shall see them when you come in the summer, Adriaan.”

“Yes, Grandmamma.”

His voice sounded very refined and soft; and Constance had to smile. But, while he sat there stiffly, with his shoulders squared and his legs close together, he was dividing the rooms of the house near the Woods. Mamma, meanwhile, was exchanging toilsome words with Grandmamma. He portioned out the rooms. Downstairs, the drawing-room and the dining-room, more or less as at Uncle Gerrit’s: those two rooms always communicated in Holland, with folding-doors between them. And the little conservatory. And the little garden was quite nice. Upstairs, the large room for Mamma and the smaller one for Papa; and it was jolly that he himself could have that sort of turret-room, with a bow-window, in between their two bedrooms. So he would be between Papa and Mamma. Above that, there was still a sort of attic floor, but that did not concern him: Mamma must manage that. It was rather risky perhaps, to go to that fat man to-morrow—a contractor, Papa called him—and tell him that Papa had sent him to say that he would take the house. . . . Perhaps that house in the something van Nassaustraat was better, bigger. But it was dearer also. . . . Perhaps Papa would be angry, if he acted just like that, off his own bat; but, of course, there would be nothing settled in black and white. Only, if Papa and Mamma once knew that