THE BURGOMASTER'S FAMILY. CHAPTER I. IT THE JOURNEY HOME. T was a fine day in June, and the eleven o'clock train from Amsterdam, heavily laden with passengers and luggage, only waited for the last whistle to start from the station. The peculiar bustle of the moment of departure prevailed on the platform. Trucks with trunks and packages were wheeled in all haste out of the luggage office to the goods vans; relations and friends who were to remain behind waved their adieux to the travellers, and here and there a last shake of the hand was exchanged. 'Good-bye, Miss Emmy! God bless you! Think now and then of old Henry !' It was a little meagre old man who uttered these words, as he stood, with his cap in his hand, at the door of a first-class carriage. A fair-haired young lady leant out of the window with a friendly smile, and with tears in her eyes. She did not answer his adieux, but reached out her hand once more to the old man, and, indeed, A had she spoken, he could hardly have heard her, for the whistle screamed and the train was off. The young lady sat in a corner of the carriage and gazed out of the window, whilst one by one the objects familiar to her vanished out of her sight. The tears rolled down her cheeks, but yet it was rather a melancholy sensation incidental to leave-taking than any more painful feeling which caused them to flow; for Emmy Welters was still at that happy age when every change has its charms, when the future looks rose-coloured in the horizon, and the feeling of youth and cheerfulness soon overcame any momentary regret. Emmy Welters was eighteen years of age. Where was she going? She was going to her native place and parental home. To both, owing to a long absence, she had become almost a stranger. For in her twelfth year she had had the misfortune to lose her mother, and her unmarried aunt at Amsterdam had taken possession of her with the ready consent of her father, who felt himself little fitted to superintend the completion of her education. The aunt who took charge of her was one of those women to be found in almost every family; a woman who in ordinary times is too little considered, but who, as soon as sorrow, sickness, or death enters the house, appears on the threshold as a guardian angel. In such a case it is to her always that the letter written with a trembling hand is addressed. Be it Aunt Anna, Sister Wim, or Cousin Kate, she is always an old maid, and for this reason people feel justified in making use of her. It seems to them quite natural that she should leave her comfortable home to administer the household and keep the seven troublesome children in order, whilst the mistress of the house is up-stairs with the newly-born, No. 8. (She is unmarried, and therefore cannot be wanted at home.) It does not appear unreasonable that in another family where the husband lies ill, she should watch day and night by his bedside (she has nothing better to do). It is quite en règle that she should come and take care of the husband whose wife has been carried to the churchyard. Yes, indeed, it is even thought nothing out of the way if, during the three warm summer months, she acts as bonne to the children, while husband and wife are making a tour among the mountains in Switzerland (after all, it is more sociable for her than being at home alone with her cat and canary bird). At least so people think, and so they justify themselves; and thus the unmarried women are not unfrequently weighted with all the burdens of all the families of their relations and friends, and their task is somewhat heavier than that of the married woman, who has only the cares of a single family to call her own. Of all these privileged family drudges Emmy's aunt was certainly one of the most privileged. She was the eldest of eight brothers and sisters, who were all married except herself; and as she had sufficient fortune to make her independent, she might have enjoyed much of life, had not all these families considered her indispensable in deaths, in baptisms, and in sickness, so that gradually her own home was only recognised as a place where she lodged for a few weeks, whenever, by a happy chance, none of her brothers and sisters required her help. Amidst all the many burdens borne for the sake of others, Aunt Emmy had grown old, and probably the remainder of her life would have been spent in the same manner, had not an unexpected event provided her with. a few years of rest. |