of his youth very possibly might have given the strait-laced lady cause
for anxiety. Even when his locks were white he was ready for any
pleasure; but he devoted himself earnestly to art, and I am under
obligation to him for being the means of my mother's possessing the
friendship of the animal painter, Verboeckhoven, and that greatest of
more modern Belgian artists, Louis Gallait and his family, in whose
society and home I have passed many delightful hours.

In recalling our arrival at the Jones house I first see the merry,
smiling face--somewhat faunlike in its expression--of my six-foot uncle,
and the plump figure of his wonderfully good and when undisturbed by
jealousy--no less cheery wife. There was something specially winning and
lovable about her, and I have heard that this lady, my mother's oldest
sister, possessed in her youth the same dazzling beauty. At the famous
ball in Brussels this so captivated the Duke of Wellington that he
offered her his arm to escort her back to her seat. My mother also
remembered the Napoleonic days, and I thought she had been specially
favoured in seeing this great man when he entered Rotterdam, and also
Goethe.

I remember my grandfather as a stately old gentleman. He, as well as
the other members of the family, called me Georg Krullebol, which means
curly-head, to distinguish me from a cousin called Georg von Gent. I
also remember that when, on the morning of December 5th, St. Nicholas
day, we children took our shoes to put on, we found them, to our delight,
stuffed with gifts; and lastly that on Christmas Eve the tree which had
been prepared for us in a room on the ground floor attracted such a crowd
of curious spectators in front of the Jones house that we were obliged to
close the shutters. Of my grandparents' day of honor I remember nothing
except a large room filled with people, and the minutes during which