She rose quickly and went up-stairs to get her hat and jacket.  Soon after, the carriage, which she had extravagantly ordered, came, and she called the servant to help her down with her luggage.  They got it down the narrow staircase between them and into the hall; Julia glanced back at the white marble kitchen for the last time, and at the dim little sitting-room.  Vrouw Van Heigen was there, very much absorbed in crochet; but she had left the door ajar so that she might know when Julia went, and that must have occupied a prominent place in her mind, for she made a mistake at every other stitch.

“Good-bye, Mevrouw,” Julia said.

Vrouw Van Heigen grunted; she remembered what was due to herself and propriety.

“And, oh,” Julia looked back to say as she remembered it, “don’t forget that last lot of peach-brandy we made, it was not properly tied down; you ought to look at the covers some time this week.”

“Ah, yes,” said the old lady, forgetting propriety, “thank you, thank you, I’ll see to it; it will never do to have that go; such fine peaches too.”

Then Julia went out and got into the carriage.  Mijnheer was in his office; he did not think it quite right to come to see her start either; all the same he came to the door to tell the driver to be careful not to go on the grass.  Joost came also and looked over his father’s shoulder, and Julia, who had been amused at Vrouw Van Heigen, suddenly forgot this little amusement again.

Joost left his father.  “I will tell the man,” he said.  “I will go after him too and shut the gate; it grows late for it to be open.”

The carriage had already started, and he had to hurry after it; even then he did not catch it up till it was past the bend of the drive.  Then the man saw him and pulled up, though it is doubtful if he got any order or, indeed, any word.  Julia had been looking back, but from the other side; and because she had been looking back and remembering much happiness and simplicity here, she was so grieved for one at least who dwelt here that her eyes were full of tears.

Joost saw them when, on the stopping of the carriage, she turned.  “Do not weep,” he said; “you must not weep for me.”

“I am so sorry,” she said; “so dreadfully sorry!”

“But you must not be,” he told her; “there is no need.”

“There is every need; you have been so kind to me, so good; you have almost taught me—­though you don’t know it—­some goodness too, and in return I have brought you nothing but sadness.”

“Ah, yes, sadness,” he said; “but gladness too, and the gladness is more than the sadness.  Would you not sooner know the fine even though you cannot attain to it, than be content with the little all your life?  I would, and it is that which you have given me.  It is I who give nothing—­”

He hesitated as if for a moment at a loss, and she had no words to fill in the pause.