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282 her, on her poor Sunday evenings! And what was the use of ordering such a lot of cakes, if there was nobody there to eat them?

And it was very strange, but this evening, now that her rooms were so empty, she grew very weary of those who were there—Adolphine, Cateau, Floortje and Dijkerhof—very tired. She felt her face becoming drawn and haggard, her drooping eyelids twitching over her dim eyes and her heavily-veined hands trembling in her lap with utter weariness. She did not speak, only nodded: the wise nod of old age, knowing that old age spells sadness. She only nodded, longing for them to go. They were uncomfortable: they whispered together, their faces were pale; they sat there staring in such a strange, spectral way. . . as if something dreadful had happened or was going to happen. . . . Had the servants made up the fires so badly? Was it so bitterly cold, so creepily chilly in her rooms, that she felt shivers all down her old, bent back? . . . And, when the children at last, earlier than usual, took leave of her—still with that same spectral stare, as though they were looking at something dreadful that had happened or was going to happen—she felt inclined to say to them that she was getting too old now to keep up her Sunday evenings; she had it on her lips to say as much to Floortje, to Cateau, to Adolphine; but a pity for them all and especially for herself restrained her and she