"
"That signifies nothing, Elsje - I am not so proud of that."
I was joking, but she understood me.
"No, you are not proud, but still you have assurance. That I have not.
Do you know how I got my name?"
"Well?"
"They called me Van Vianen, became I was found near Vianen. I have no
parents."
She said this deeply humiliated and ashamed. And in my heart I laughed,
because now after all she too showed herself apprehensive of the voice
of the herd, and because she felt as a disgrace, the very thing that,
as an aureole of romance, had delighted me.
"Oh, is it only that!" I cried; "that I already knew. All week I have
thought of the poor, dear little one as crying, it was laid down upon
the grass by a desperate mother. Likely it was a royal child, Elsje!"
Elsie laughed, reassured and happy.
"They let me become a Mennonite. Not Jan Baars, but his sister who took
me into her home as a child."
"Ah! Mennonite!" said I. I hadn't the slightest idea what theological,
ethical and ritual peculiarities were attached to this creed.
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