But the Koosje and Dortje were not the same. What had become of Dortje I cannot say; but on the left-hand side of the busy, bustling, picturesque Oude Gracht there was a handsome shop filled with all manner of cakes, sweeties, confections, and liquors from absinthe to Benedictine, or arrack to chartreuse. In that shop was a handsome, prosperous, middle-aged woman, well dressed and well mannered, no longer Professor van Dijck's Koosje, but the Jevrouw van Kampen.

Yes; Koosje had come to be a prosperous tradeswoman of good position, respected by all. But she was Koosje van Kampen still; the romance which had come to so disastrous and abrupt an end had sufficed for her life. Many an offer had been made to her, it is true; but she had always declared that she had had enough of lovers-she had found out their real value.

I must tell you that at the time of Jan's infidelity, after the first flush of rage was over, Koosje disdained to show any sign of grief or regret. She was very proud, this Netherlandish servant-maid, far too proud to let those by whom she was surrounded imagine she was wearing the willow for the faithless Jan; and when Dortje, on the day of the wedding, remarked that for her part she had always considered Koosje remarkably cool on the subject of matrimony, Koosje, with a careless outturning of her hands, palms uppermost, answered that she was right.

Very soon after their marriage Jan and his

young wife left Utrecht for Arnheim, where Jan had promise of higher wages; and thus they passed, as Koosje thought, completely out of her life.

"I don't wish to hear anything more about them, if-you-please," she said, severely and emphatically, to Dortje.

But not so. In time the professor died, leaving Koosje the large legacy with which she set up the handsome shop in the Oude Gracht; and several years passed on.

It happened one day that Koosje was sitting in her shop sewing. In the large inner room a party of ladies and officers were eating cakes and drinking chocolates and liquors with a good deal of fun and laughter, when the door was opened timidly, thereby letting in a gust of bitter wind, and a woman crept fearfully in followed by two small, crying children.

Could the lady give her something to eat? she asked; they had had nothing during the day, and the little ones were almost famished.

Koosje, who was very charitable, lifted a tray of large, plain buns, and was about to give her some, when her eyes fell upon the poor beggar's faded face, and she exclaimed:

"Truide!"

Truide, for it was she, looked up in startled surprise.

"I did not know, or I would not have come in, Koosje," she said, humbly; "for I treated you very badly."

"Ve-ry bad-ly," returned Koosje, emphatically. "Then where is Jan?"

"Dead!" murmured Truide, sadly.

"Dead! so-ah, well!

I suppose I must do something for you. Here, Yanke!" opening the door and calling, “Yanke!"

Je, jevrouw," a voice cried, in reply.

The next moment a maid came running into the shop.

"Take these people into the kitchen and give them something to eat. Put them by the stove while you prepare it. There is some soup and that smoked ham we had for koffy. Then come here and take my place for a while."

"Je, jevrouw," said Yanke, disappearing again, followed by Truide and her children.

Then Koosje sat down again, and began to think.

"I said," she mused, presently," that night that the next time I fell over a bundle I'd leave it where I found it. Ah, well! I'm not a barbarian; I could n't do that. I never thought, though, it would be Truide."

"Hi, jevrouw," was called from the inner

room.

"Je, mynheer," jumping up and going to her

customers.

She attended to their wants, and presently bowed them out.

"I never thought it would be Truide," she repeated to herself, as she closed the door behind

the last of the gay uniforms and jingling scabbards. "And Jan is dead-ah, well!"

Then she went into the kitchen, where the miserable children-girls both of them, and pretty had they been clean and less forlornly clad-were playing about the stove.

So Jan is dead," began Koosje, seating herself.
Yes, Jan is dead," Truide answered.

"And he left you nothing?" Koosje asked.

'We had had nothing for a long time,” Truide replied, in her sad, crushed voice. "We did n't get on very well; he soon got tired of me."

"That was a weakness of his," remarked Koosje, drily.

"We lost five little ones, one after another," Truide continued. "And Jan was fond of them, and somehow it seemed to sour him. As for me, I was sorry enough at the time, Heaven knows, but it was as well. But Jan said it seemed as if a curse had fallen upon us; he began to wish you back again, and to blame me for having come between you. And then he took to genever, and then to wish for something stronger; so at last every stiver went for absinthe, and once or twice he beat me, and then he died."

"Just as well," muttered Koosje, under her breath.

"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 't is 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 had n'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."