goat's milk to make a meal for the fowls in the morning.

"Little ugly, shameful, naked feet!" she said to them, sitting on the
edge of her mattress, and looking at them in the moonlight. They were
very pretty feet, and would not have been half so pretty in silk hose and
satin shoon; but she did not know that: he had told her she wanted those
vanities.

She sat still a long while, her rosy feet swaying to and fro like two
roses that grow on one stalk and hang down in the wind. The little
lattice was open; the sweet and dusky garden was beyond; there was a
hand's breadth of sky, in which a single star was shining; the leaves
of the vine hid all the rest.

But for once she saw none of it.

She only saw the black Broodhuis; the red and gold sunset overhead; the
gray stones, with the fallen rose leaves and crushed fruits; and in the
shadows two dark, reproachful eyes, that looked at hers.

Had she been ungrateful?

The little tender, honest heart of her was troubled and oppressed. For
once, that night she slept ill.




CHAPTER VI.