everything that they can lay their hands on. I doubt if we ever
get our cargo safe to Antwerp this time. We've come for a load of
potatoes, but I am very much afraid it is going to be our last
trip for some time. The country looks quiet enough as you see it
from the boat, but the things that are happening in it would
chill your blood."

"Yes," sighed Granny; "if I would let it, my old heart would
break over the sights that I see every day on my way to Malines.
But a broken heart won't get you anywhere. Maybe a stout heart
will."

"Who are the children you have with you?" asked Mother De Smet.

Then Granny told her how she had found Jan and Marie, and all the
rest of the sad story. Mother De Smet wiped her eyes and blew her
nose very hard as she listened.

"I wouldn't let them wait any longer by the Antwerp road,
anyway," she said when Granny had finished. "There is no use in
the world in looking for their mother to come that way. She was
probably driven over the border long ago. You just leave them
with me to-morrow while you go to town. 'Twill cheer them up a
bit to play with Joseph and the babies."

"Well, now," said Granny, "if that isn't just like your good
heart!"

And that is how it happened that, when she trudged off with her
barrow the next morning, the Twins ran down to the boat and spent