He began again; but the doctor interrupted him before he had hardly mentioned the fried potatoes.
"Yes, such things happen to everybody. That doesn't amount to anything. The thing for young people to do--and for old people, too--is to work. It seems to be rather windy."
That was true. If it had only been as windy yesterday.
"Do you like pictures?" asked Holsma, when they had left the carriage and were entering his home.
"Good! Just go into that room. Look at everything as long as you please."
The doctor pushed him into the room, then ran through the hall and up the stairs to prepare the family for Walter's reception.
Walter found little pleasure in paintings. He had had no training in art. For him, a man with a dog and a hare was merely a man with a dog and a hare. He felt that a poem ought to have been written about it all; then it would have been intelligible. His glance fell on the portrait of a woman, or a queen, or a fairy, or a mayor's daughter.
Instead of the North Holland cap she wore a diadem of sparkling stars, or rays of----
"Dinner is ready, and papa and mamma invite you to come out to the dining-room. Are you still sore after your fall?" It was little Sietske.
"I mean from your fall on the table in the coffee-house. How comical! Well, if you are all right again, we're going out this evening--papa, mamma, William, Hermann, you, I--all! We're going to the theatre!"
"Going out?--to the theatre? But my mother----"
"Papa will attend to that. Don't worry; he will arrange everything."
Once out in the hall, Walter hesitated again. He motioned to Sietske and took her back into the room.
"That is a great-great-great-great-grandmother of ours."
"Like Femke! Of course. Like me, too. When Hermann puts on such a cap you can't tell him from Femke. Come, now. We mustn't keep mamma waiting."
On entering the dining-room Walter was met by that quiet cordiality that the doctor had prescribed. When all were seated Sietske mentioned the picture again in apologizing to Walter for hurrying him away from it.
"Yes," remarked the doctor quietly, "there is some resemblance; but Femke is not so pretty. No, not by a great deal."
Walter had never thought of Femke's beauty. He really did not know whether the girl was pretty, or not.