Yet he did not look _poor_, and his face, when at last he lifted it, was mild and intelligent and very earnest.
While Griselda was watching him closely there came a soft tap at the door, and a little girl danced into the room.

The dearest little girl you ever saw, and _so_ funnily dressed! Her thick brown hair, rather lighter than Griselda's, was tied in two long plaits down her back.

She had a short red skirt with silver braid round the bottom, and a white chemisette with beautiful lace at the throat and wrists, and over that again a black velvet bodice, also trimmed with silver.

And she had a great many trinkets, necklaces, and bracelets, and ear-rings, and a sort of little silver coronet; no, it was not like a coronet, it was a band with a square piece of silver fastened so as to stand up at each side of her head something like a horse's blinkers, only they were not placed over her eyes.
She made quite a jingle as she came into the room, and the old man looked up with a smile of pleasure.
"Well, my darling, and are you all ready for your _fete_ ?" he said; and though the language in which he spoke was quite strange to Griselda, she understood his meaning perfectly well.
"Yes, dear grandfather; and isn't my dress lovely ?" said the child.

"I should be _so_ happy if only you were coming too, and would get yourself a beautiful velvet coat like Mynheer van Huyten." The old man shook his head.
"I have no time for such things, my darling," he replied; "and besides, I am too old.