“Maybe more than you are,” he retorted; in answer to which Koosje deliberately marched out of the kitchen, leaving them alone.

To say she was indignant would be but very mildly to express the state of her feelings; she was furious.  She knew that the end of her romance had come.  No thoughts of making friends with Jan entered her mind; only a great storm filled her heart till it was ready to burst with pain and anguish.

As she went along the passage the professor’s bell sounded, and Koosje, being close to the door, went abruptly in.  The professor looked up in mild astonishment, quickly enough changed to dismay as he caught sight of his valued Koosje’s face, from out of which anger seemed in a moment to have thrust all the bright, comely beauty.

“How now, my good Koosje?” said the old gentleman.  “Is aught amiss?”

“Yes, professor, there is,” returned Koosje, all in a blaze of anger, and moving, as she spoke, the tea-tray, which she set down upon the oaken buffet with a bang, which made its fair and delicate freight fairly jingle again.

“But you needn’t break my china, Koosje,” suggested the old gentleman, mildly, rising from his chair and getting into his favourite attitude before the stove.

“You are quite right, professor,” returned Koosje, curtly; she was sensible even in her trouble.

“And what is the trouble?” he asked, gently.

“It’s just this, professor,” cried Koosje, setting her arms akimbo and speaking in a high-pitched, shrill voice; “you and I have been warming a viper in our bosoms, and, viper-like, she has turned round and bitten me.”

“Is it Truide?”

“Truide,” she affirmed, disdainfully.  “Yes, it is Truide, who but for me would be dead now of hunger and cold—­or worse.  And she has been making love to that great fool, Jan van der Welde,—­great oaf that he is,—­after all I have done for her; after my dragging her in out of the cold and rain; after all I have taught her.  Ah, professor, but it is a vile, venomous viper that we have been warming in our bosoms!”

“I must beg, Koosje,” said the old gentleman, sedately, “that you will exonerate me from any such proceeding.  If you remember rightly, I was altogether against your plan for keeping her in the house.”  He could not resist giving her that little dig, kind of heart as he was.

“Serves me right for being so soft-hearted!” thundered Koosje.  “I’ll be wiser next time I fall over a bundle, and leave it where I find it.”

“No, no, Koosje; don’t say that,” the old gentleman remonstrated, gently.  “After all, it may be but a blessing in disguise.  God sends all our trials for some good and wise purpose.  Our heaviest afflictions are often, nay, most times, Koosje, means to some great end which, while the cloud of adversity hangs over us, we are unable to discern.”

“Ah!” sniffed Koosje, scornfully.