Julia cheered and encouraged her in this belief (which, indeed, there
was every reason to think well founded) and gave her the messages and
dainties she had brought. After that they talked of the weather, which
was bad; and the neighbours, who, on the whole, were good. Julia knew
most of them by name by this time--the kind old Padre and his wife;
the captain of the little cargo-boat, who drank a little, and his
generous wife, who talked a great deal; the fat woman who kept fowls,
and the thin one who sometimes stole the eggs. Julia had heard all
about them before, but she heard over again, and a little about the
great chemist, Herr Van de Greutz, too.

This great man was naturally only a name to the invalid and her
friends, but they had always plenty to say about him. He was so
distinguished that all the village felt proud to have him live on
their borders, and so disagreeable that they were decidedly in awe of
him. Of his domestic arrangements there was always talk; he lived in
his great gloomy house with an old housekeeper, whom Julia knew by
sight, and a young cook, whom she did not; the former was a
permanency, the latter very much the reverse, it being difficult to
find a cook equal to his demands who would for any length of time
endure the shortness of the housekeeper's temper, and the worse one of
her master. The domestic affairs of the chemist were a favourite
subject of gossip, but sometimes his attainments came in for mention
too; they did to-night, the cousin being in a garrulous mood.
According to her, the great man had done everything in science worth
mentioning, and was not only the first chemist in Holland, but in all
the world; he looked down on all others, she said, regarding two
Germans only as anything approaching his peers, all the English and
French being nothing to him. He had discovered a great many things,
dyes, poisons, and explosives; of the last he had recently perfected