She did not pretend to herself that she did not enjoy that too, she did immensely; there was a breath from the outside world in it; there was sometimes the inspiring clash of wits, of steel on steel, always the charm of educated intercourse and quick comprehension.  To-night there was nothing; no exercise to stir the blood, no solitude to stimulate the imagination, no effort of talk or understanding to rouse the mind.  Nothing but to sit at work, giving one-eighth of attention to talk with Mevrouw—­more was not needed, and the rest to the blue daffodils that lay securely locked up in a place only too well known.

Evening darkened, grey and dripping, to-night, supper-getting time came, and the hour for locking up the barns.  Mijnheer, snuffling and wheezing a good deal, put on a coat, a mackintosh, a comforter, a pair of boots and a pair of galoshes; took an umbrella, the lantern, a great bunch of keys, and went out.  Julia watched him go, and said nothing; she had been the rounds a good many times with Joost now; the family had talked about it more than once, and about her bravery with regard to rats and robbers.  Neither of the old people would have been surprised if she had volunteered to go in place of Mijnheer, even if his cold had not offered a reason for such a thing.  But she did not do it; he went alone, and the blue daffodil bulbs lay snug in their locked place.

The next day it still rained, but a good deal harder.  There was a sudden drop in the temperature, too, such as one often finds in an English summer.  The Van Heigens did not have a fire on that account, their stoves always kept a four months’ sabbath; the advent of a snow-storm in July would not have been allowed to break it.  Mijnheer’s cold was decidedly worse; towards evening it grew very bad.  He came in early from the office, and sat and shivered in the sitting-room with Julia and his wife, who was continuing the crochet unaided, and so laying up much future work for Denah.  At last it was considered dark enough for the lamp to be lighted.  Julia got up and lit it, and drew the blind, shutting out the grey sheet of the canal and the slanting rain.

“Dear me,” Mevrouw said once again, “how bad the rain must be for Joost!”

Julia agreed, but reminded her—­also once again—­that it was possibly not raining in Germany.

Mijnheer looked up from his paper to remark that the weather was very bad for the crops.

“It is bad for every one,” his wife rejoined; “but worse of all for you.  You should be in bed.  Indeed, it is not fit that you should be up; the house is like a cellar this evening.”

Mijnheer did not suggest the remedy of a fire; he, too, shared the belief that stoves should not be lighted before the appointed time; he only protested at the idea of bed.  “Pooh!” he said.  “Make myself an invalid with Joost away!  Will you go and nurse my nose, and put plasters on my chest?  Go to bed now, do you say?  No, no, my dear, I will sit here; I am comfortable enough; I read my paper, I smoke my cigar; by and by, I go out to see that my barns are all safe for the night.”