"It is very good of you to have fed and warmed us," Truide went on, in
her faint, complaining tones. "Many a one would have let me starve, and
I should have deserved it. It is very good of you and we are grateful;
but 'tis time we were going, Koosje and Mina;" then added, with a shake
of her head, "but I don't know where."

"Oh, you'd better stay," said Koosje, hurriedly. "I live in this big
house by myself, and I dare say you'll be more useful in the shop than
Yanke--if your tongue is as glib as it used to be, that is. You know
some English, too, don't you?"

"A little," Truide answered, eagerly.

"And after all," Koosje said, philosophically, shrugging her shoulders,
"you saved me from the beatings and the starvings and the rest. I owe
you something for that. Why, if it hadn't been for you I should have
been silly enough to have married him."

And then she went back to her shop, saying to herself:

"The professor said it was a blessing in disguise; God sends all our
trials to work some great purpose. Yes; that was what he said, and he
knew most things. Just think if I were trailing about now with those
two little ones, with nothing to look back to but a schnapps-drinking
husband who beat me! Ah, well, well! things are best as they are. I
don't know that I ought not to be very much obliged to her--and she'll
be very useful in the shop."