She
rose and went up to her room; she would clear the table after Joost
had gone back to work.
She did so, coming down when he and Mijnheer were safely in the
office. When she had done she went to Mevrouw, who had betaken herself
to her room worn out by the morning's excitement.
"Would you prefer that I went at once?" she inquired, "or that I
waited till after dinner? I will stay till six if you wish it, or I
will go now without waiting to attend to the dinner."
Vrouw Van Heigen preferred the waiting; it would be so very much
better for the dinner, and really it hardly seemed as if propriety
could suffer much; accordingly she said with what dignity she could
that the girl had better stay till the evening.
Julia went down-stairs again and set to work preparing the dinner, and
it was perhaps only natural that she took pains to make that dinner a
memorably good one. It was while she was busy in the kitchen that a
note was brought to her.
"Put it on the table," she said to the servant girl; her hands just
then were too floury to take it, but she looked at it as it lay on the
table beside her. She did not recognise the writing, though she saw at
once that it was not that of a Dutchman. "Who brought it?" she asked,
beginning to clean her hands.
The servant could not say, but from her description Julia gathered
that it must have been a special messenger of some sort.
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