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The Story of My Life — Complete by Georg Ebers
page 37 of 200 (18%)
a radiant star, a human face. Any individual recollection of the journey
to Holland, aside from what has been told me, is getting into the
travelling carriage, a little green leather Bajazzo dressed in red and
white given to me by a relative, and the box of candies bestowed to take
on the trip by a friend of my mother.

Of our reception in the Belgian capital at the house of Adolphe Jones,
the husband of my aunt Henriette, a sister of my mother, I retain many
recollections.

Our pleasant host was a painter of animals, whom I afterward saw sharing
his friend Verboeckhoven's studio, and whose flocks of sheep were very
highly praised. At that time his studio was in his own house, and it
seems as if I could still hear the call in my aunt's shrill voice,
repeated countless times a day, "Adolphe!" and the answer, following
promptly in the deepest bass tones, "Henriette!" This singular freak,
which greatly amused us, was due, as I learned afterward, to my aunt's
jealousy, which almost bordered on insanity.

In later years I learned to know him as a jovial artist, who in the days
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,
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