At six o'clock Mijnheer and his son went back to the office, and Julia, having washed the tea-cups, joined Mevrouw in the sitting-room. It was never very light in that room, for the walls were covered with a crimson flock paper and the woodwork was black; while the windows, which looked on the canal, were always shaded till dark. They sat here at work on the morning gown, till supper time. Mijnheer sometimes came in an hour before supper, as early as half-past eight; Joost had usually too much to do to come in before half-past nine. After supper, when the things were cleared away, they had prayers; Mijnheer read a chapter from the Bible, and they sat round the table and listened, and afterwards he said, "Now we will pray," and they sat a while in silence. Julia sat, too, her keen, observing eyes cast down and a curious stillness about her. After that every one went to bed; Julia and the maidservant had two little rooms right up in the eaves of the house; the family slept on the floor below. Julia was glad of this, though it was possible to imagine her room would be very hot in summer and very cold in winter. But she was glad to be well above the sleeping house, and to be able to look from her window across the wide country, over the dark bulb gardens--laid out like a Chinese puzzle with their eight-foot hedges--to the lights of the town on the one hand, and, better still, to the dim curve of the Dunes on the other. It is to be feared she sometimes spent a longer time at her window than was wise, seeing the early hour at which she had to rise; but no one was troubled by it, for she was careful to take off her shoes first thing; the rooms were unceiled, and it was necessary to tread lightly if one would not disturb people below. On the day after that of Anna and Denah's visit, Herr Van Heigen offered to show Julia the bulb barns. It was a Saturday, and so after dinner, the workmen having all gone home, there was no one about and she could ascend the steep barn ladders without any suffering in her modesty. At least that was what Mijnheer thought; Julia, her modesty being of a very serviceable order, may have given the matter less consideration, but she accepted the offer.