.

392 Hans Brinker

Rychie’s soul has been stirred to its depths during these long
years. Her history would tell how seed carelessly sown is
sometimes reaped in anguish, and how a golden harvest may
follow a painful planting. If I mistake not, you may be able
to read the written record before long; that is, if you are
familiar with the Dutch language. In the witty but earnest
author, whose words are welcomed at this day in thousands of
Holland homes, few could recognize the haughty, flippant
Rychie, who scoffed at little Gretel.

Lambert van Mounen and Ludwig van Holp are good
Christian men, and, what is more easily to be seen at a glance,
thriving citizens. Both are dwellers in Amsterdam; but one
clings to the old city of that name, and the other is a pilgrim
to the new. Van Mounen’s present home is not far from the
Central Park; and he says, if the New Yorkers do their duty,
the Park will in time equal his beautiful Bosch, near the
Hague. He often thinks of the Katrinka of his boyhood ; but
he is glad now that Katrinka the. woman sent him away,
though it seemed at the time his darkest hour.

Carl Schummel has had a hard life. His father met with
reverses in business ; and as Carl had not many warm friends,
and, above all, was not sustained by noble principles, he has
been tossed about by fortune’s battledore, until his gayest
feathers are nearly all knocked off. He is a book-keeper in the
thriving Amsterdam house of Boekman and Schimmelpenninck.
Voostenwalbert, the junior partner, treats him kindly ; and he,
in turn, is very respectful to the “monkey with a long name
for a tail.”

Of all our group of Holland friends, Jacob Poot is the only
one who has passed away. Good-natured, true-hearted and
unselfish to the last, he is mourned now as heartily as he was