morning, then her heart began to flutter, a thrill ran through her body
and, so that she shouldn't weep for gladness, she bit her lips, squeezed
her hands between her knees and rubbed them until the ecstasy was passed
and she again lay smiling in supreme content and shivering with delight.

[6] The bedroom behind the kitchen or living-room, in the Flemish
cottages, is over the cellar; but this cellar is not entirely
underground and is lighted by a very low window at the back.
Consequently, the floor of the bedroom is a little higher than that
of the living-room and is approached by a flight of two or three
steps.

Time dragged on; cold weather came and rain and it seemed as if it never
would be summer. And that constant repetition of getting up and going to
bed and learning her lessons and counting the hours and the minutes
became so dreary and seemed to go round and round in an endless circle.

To-day at last was the long-awaited holiday when Horieneke might go into
town with mother to buy clothes. Her heart throbbed; and she walked
beside mother, with eyes wide-open, looking round at every window, up one
street and down another, crying aloud each time for joy when she saw
pretty things displayed. They bought white slippers with little bows, a
splendid wreath of white lilies of the valley, a great veil of woven
lace, a white-ivory prayer-book, a mother-of-pearl rosary with a little
glass peep-hole in the silver crucifix, showing all manner of pretty
things. Horieneke sighed with happiness. Mother haggled and bargained,
said within herself that it was "foolishness to waste all that money,"
but bought and went on buying; and, every time something new went into
the big basket, it was: