The Dutch Girl Read Online Free PDF

the back of the canvas. The sender had taken a great deal of time with his love token, inking and folding it so that the verses made sense no matter which way one read it. Anna opened the puzzle purse to find that the illustrations inside were no less . . . ardent.
    â€œWhere did you get this?” Anna asked.
    â€œI had it from Mrs. Peterson,” admitted Becky. “She did not know the contents,” the girl added hastily.
    Anna handed the letter back to Becky. “Take it to the garden. Read it, by yourself,” instructed Anna, “and then burn it.”
    â€œI can’t burn it,” said Becky. “He must have spent days writing it.”
    And illustrating it, no doubt. “Your parents are unlikely to find it as amusing as your friends do. Nor will they be as understanding as I am.”
    â€œI would keep it hidden,” insisted Becky.
    â€œAnd someone would find it, just as I have.”
    Becky paled at the unwelcome prospect. “I shall take it out to the garden now,” she decided.
    Becky departed. Anna sent the remaining girls up to the studio at the top of the house, where the light was very fine for sketching in the afternoon, and descended to the cellar kitchen.
    Mrs. Peterson was mixing dough. She was an excellent baker, and she looked the part, plump and homely in her saffron linen jacket and skirt. Her little cakes were as fine as anything Mr. Fraunces offered at his tavern or sold from his bakeshop in Vauxhall Gardens. They were light and airy confections, made with the finely milledwheat flour that Anna’s prosperity afforded. And yet, just at that moment, Anna hungered for the homely little
koekjes
from Harenwyck, Dutch treats, leavened with potash and spiced with cardamom and orange water and stretched with cornmeal.
    â€œYou’ve been passing letters for the girls again,” said Anna, helping herself to one of the ginger cakes cooling on the rack.
    â€œThere’s no harm in it with Becky,” said Mrs. Peterson, pouring her batter into a buttered dish. “She’s too sensible to do anything foolish. It’s the other one, Mary, you’ll need to watch.”
    Anna decided against mentioning the illustrations in the letter, because Mrs. Peterson was right. Becky was sensible. She would burn the love token, no matter how cleverly inked and folded it was.
    Mary Phillips, though, was not sensible. The girl had been in one scrape after another ever since she had arrived at the school. Anna had tried talking with her, warned her of the dangers she courted, but ultimately realized that the girl would have to make her own mistakes, just like Anna had. Still, the fewer opportunities for those mistakes, the better, for all concerned. “Could Miss Demarest watch her, do you think, and manage the school, if I went away for a while?”
    Mrs. Peterson halted on her way to the oven and set her dish down. “And where would you be thinking of going?”
    â€œNorth, on a private tutoring engagement.”
    â€œShe did a fair bit of traveling, in her day,” said Mrs.Peterson. She did not have to say who “she” was. They were speaking of the Widow.
    She did,
Anna thought.
And one day she didn’t come back.

Two
    Anna had never traveled so far in such style. More than a decade before she had made the journey from Harenwyck to New York on foot, mile after mile in her sturdy
klompen
. It had taken her days—she had lost track of how many on the road—to reach the ferry, and hunger and cold had been her constant companions.
    Today was different. She was warm and well fed in Andries Van Haren’s well-sprung coach, and the slippers on her feet were soft pink silk. They were not the most practical footwear for a trip into farm country. They were, in fact, the finest shoes she owned, and she kept them stuffed with paper in the bottom drawer of her good chest, reserving them for the recitals parents attended, the