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the damp. They had never heard him talk so
much about the Forest and the trees. The neigh-
bours asked each other what he could be doing
there, and what was the reason for his being seen
talking to that little servant girl. In the kitchen
Jansje said : ' Mark my words, she's a kind, bright
little thing, she'll save the boy yet.3—' Yes,' said
Stien, c you never know what way salvation'll come.'
One day Wijntje came in the evening. She sat
talking to Werendonk for a long time. And he
closed his books and took her home because the road
was so dark. At the gate he held her hand for a
while, pressing it in his. On his return he went
into the kitchen ; Frans and Stien looked at him
in astonishment, he spoke so cheerfully. He said
he was going on a journey the following morning,
and he believed that this was an end of their trial.
Stien broke in to say that everything in his room
was in order, so that he would find everything he
needed there. They went upstairs to see it. And
he commissioned Frans to get in some bellefleurs
and wine-apples, because the boy was so fond of
them. He was preparing to go to bed when he
remembered that he had to put his accounts away,
and as he was doing this, strangely enough he
suddenly thought of that evening when the little
book in which his father's words were written had
fallen out of the cupboard.
It was not yet daybreak when he went out, a light