"So it is the end, then. On the sabbath day Neil has gone. If it should be the sabbath day in the other world,—which is likely,—it will be the worse for Neil."

"What mean you?"

"Is not Neil Semple dead?"

"No. I think, also, that he will live."

"I am glad. It is good for Katherine."

"I see it not."

"Well, then, if he dies, is it not Katherine's fault?"

"Heaven and hell! No! Katherine is not to blame."

"All respectable and moral people will say so."

"Better for them not to say so. If I hear of it, then I will make them say it to my face."

"Then? Well?"

"I have my hands and my feet, for them—to punish their tongues."

"And the kirk session?"

"Oh, I care not! What is the kirk session to my little Katherine? Batavius, if man or woman you hear speak ill of her, tell them it is not Katherine, but Bram Van Heemskirk, that will bring everything back to them. What words I say, them I mean."

"Oh, yes! And mind this, Bram, the words I think, them words I will say, whether you like them or like them not."

"As the wind you bluster,—on the sabbath day, also. In your ship I sail not, Batavius. Good-by, then, Katherine; and if any are unkind to thee, tell thy brother. For thou art right, and not wrong."

But, though Bram bravely championed his sister, he could not protect her from those wicked innuendoes disseminated for the gratification of the virtuous; nor from those malicious regrets of very good people over rumours which they declare to "be incredible," and yet which, nevertheless, they "unfortunately believe to be too true." The Scotch have a national precept which says, "Never speak ill of the dead." Would it not be much better to speak no ill of the living? Little could it have mattered to Madam Bogardus or Madam Stuyvesant what a lot of silly people said of them in Pearl Street or Maiden Lane, a century after their death; but poor Katherine Van Heemskirk shivered and sickened in the presence of averted eyes and uplifted shoulders, and in that chill atmosphere of disapproval which separated her from the sympathy and confidence of her old friends and acquaintances.

"It is thy punishment," said her mother, "bear it bravely and patiently. In a little while, it will be forgot." But the weeks went on, and the wounded men slowly fought death away from their pillows, and Katherine did not recover the place in social estimation which she had lost through the ungovernable tempers of her lovers. For, alas, there are few social pleasures that have so much vital power as that of exploring the faults of others, and comparing them with our own virtues!

But nothing ill lasts forever; and in three months Neil Semple was in his office again, wan and worn with fever and suffering, and wearing his sword arm in a sling, but still decidedly world-like and life-like. It was characteristic of Neil that few, even of his intimates, cared to talk of the duel to him, to make any observations on his absence, or any inquiries about his health. But it was evident that public opinion was in a large measure with him. Every young Provincial, who resented the domineering spirit of the army, felt Hyde's punishment in the light of a personal satisfaction. Beekman also had talked highly of the unbending spirit and physical bravery of his principal; and though in the Middle Kirk the affair was sure to be the subject of a reproof, and of a suspension of its highest privileges, yet it was not difficult to feel that sympathy often given to deeds publicly censured, but privately admired. Joris remarked this spirit with a little astonishment and dissent. He could not find in his heart any excuse for either Neil or Hyde; and, when the elder enlarged with some acerbity upon the requirements of honour among men, Joris offended him by replying,—

"Well, then, Elder, little I think of that 'honour' which runs not with the laws of God and country."

"Let me tell you, Joris, the 'voice of the people is the voice of God,' in a measure; and you may see with your ain een that it mair than acquits Neil o' wrong-doing. Man, Joris! would you punish a fair sword-fight wi' the hangman?"

"A better way there is. In the pillory I would stand these men of honour, who of their own feelings think more than of the law of God. A very quick end that punishment would put to a custom wicked and absurd."

"Weel, Joris, we'll hae no quarrel anent the question. You are a Dutchman, and hae practical ideas o' things in general. Honour is a virtue that canna be put in the Decalogue, like idolatry and murder and theft."

"Say you the Decalogue? Its yea and nay are enough. Harder than any of God's laws are the laws we make for ourselves. Little I think of their justice and wisdom. If right was Neil, if wrong was Hyde, honour punished both. A very foolish law is honour, I think."

"Here comes Neil, and we'll let the question fa' to the ground. There are wiser men than either you or I on baith sides."

Joris nodded gravely, and turned to welcome the young man. More than ever he liked him; for, apart from moral and prudential reasons, it was easy for the father to forgive an unreasonable love for his Katharine. Also, he was now more anxious for a marriage between Neil and his daughter. It was indeed the best thing to fully restore her to the social esteem of her own people; for by making her his wife, Neil would most emphatically exonerate her from all blame in the quarrel. Just this far, and no farther, had Neil's three months' suffering aided his suit,—he had now the full approval of Joris, backed by the weight of this social justification.

But, in spite of these advantages, he was really much farther away from Katherine. The three months had been full of mental suffering to her, and she blamed Neil entirely for it. She had heard from Bram the story of the challenge and the fight; heard how patiently Hyde had parried Neil's attack rather than return it, until Neil had so passionately refused any satisfaction less than his life; heard, also, how even at the point of death, fainting and falling, Hyde had tried to protect her ribbon at his breast. She never wearied of talking with Bram on the subject; she thought of it all day, dreamed of it all night.

And she knew much more about it than her parents or Joanna supposed. Bram had easily fallen into the habit of calling at Cohen's to ask after his patient. He would have gone for his sister's comfort alone, but it was also a great pleasure to himself. At first he saw Miriam often; and, when he did, life became a heavenly thing to Bram Van Heemskirk. And though latterly it was always the Jew himself who answered his questions, there was at least the hope that Miriam would be in the store, and lift her eyes to him, or give him a smile or a few words of greeting. Katherine very soon suspected how matters stood with her brother, and gratitude led her to talk with him about the lovely Jewess. Every day she listened with apparent interest to his descriptions of Miriam, as he had seen her at various times; and every day she felt more desirous to know the girl whom she was certain Bram deeply loved.

But for some weeks after the duel she could not bear to leave the house. It was only after both men were known to be recovering, that she ventured to kirk; and her experience there was not one which tempted her to try the streets and the stores. However, no interest is a living interest in a community but politics; and these probably retain their power because change is their element. People eventually got weary to death of Neil Semple and Captain Hyde and Katherine Van Heemskirk. The subject had been discussed in every possible light; and, when it was known that neither of the men was going to die, gossipers felt as if they had been somewhat defrauded, and the topic lost every touch of speculation.

Also, far more important events had now the public attention. During the previous March, the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act had passed both houses of Parliament; and Virginia and Massachusetts, conscious of their dangerous character, had roused the fears of the other Provinces; and a convention of their delegates was appointed to meet during October in New York. It was this important session which drew Neil Semple, with scarcely healed wounds, from his chamber. The streets were noisy with hawkers crying the detested Acts, and crowded with groups of stern-looking men discussing them. And, with the prospect of soldiers quartered in every home, women had a real grievance to talk over; and Katherine Van Heemskirk's love-affair became an intrusion and a bore, if any one was foolish enough to name it.



It was during this time of excitement that Katherine said one morning, at breakfast, "Bram wait one minute for me. I am going to do an errand or two for my mother.

"It is a bad time, Katherine, you have chosen," said Batavius. "Full of men are the streets, excited men too, and of swaggering British soldiers, whom it would be a great pleasure to tie up in a halter. The British I hate,—bullying curs, everyone of them!"

"Well, I know that you hate the British, Batavius. You say so every hour."

"Katherine!"

"That is so, Joanna."

Madam looked annoyed. Joris rose, and said, "Come then, Katherine, thou shalt go with me and with Bram both. Batavius need not then fear for thee."

His voice was so tender that Katherine felt an unusual happiness and exultation; and she was also young enough to be glad to see the familiar streets again, and to feel the pulse of their vivid life make her heart beat quicker.

At Kip's store, Bram left her. She had felt so free and unremarked, that she said, "Wait not for me, Bram. By myself I will go home. Or perhaps I might call upon Miriam Cohen. What dost thou think?" And Bram's large, handsome face flushed like a girl's with pleasure, as he answered, "That I would like, and there thou could rest until the dinner-hour. As I go home, I could call for thee."

So, after selecting the goods her mother needed at Kip's, Katherine was going up Pearl Street, when she heard herself called in a familiar and urgent voice. At the same moment a door was flung open; and Mrs. Gordon, running down the few steps, put her hand upon the girl's shoulder.

"Oh, my dear, this is a piece of good fortune past belief! Come into my lodgings. Oh, indeed you shall! I will have no excuse. Surely you owe Dick and me some reward after the pangs we have suffered for you."

She was leading Katherine into the house as she spoke; and Katherine had not the will, and therefore not the power, to oppose her. She placed the girl by her side on the sofa; she took her hands, and, with a genuine grief and love, told her all that "poor Dick" had suffered and was still suffering for her sake.

"It was the most unprovoked challenge, my dear; and Neil Semple behaved like a savage, I assure you. When Dick was bleeding from half a dozen wounds, a gentleman would have been satisfied, and accepted the mediation of the seconds; but Neil, in his blind passion, broke the code to pieces. A man who can do nothing but be in a rage is a ridiculous and offensive animal. Have you seen him since his recovery? For I hear that he has crawled out of his bed again."

"Him I have not seen."

"Gracious powers, miss! Is that all you say, 'Him I have not seen'? Make me patient with so insensible a creature! Here am I almost distracted with my three months' anxiety and poor Dick, so gone as to be past knowledge, breaking his true heart for a sight of you; and you answer me as if I had asked, 'Pray, have you seen the newspaper to-day?'"

Then Katherine covered her face, and sobbed with a hopelessness and abandon that equally fretted Mrs. Gordon. "I wish I knew one corner of this world inaccessible to lovers," she cried. "Of all creatures, they are the most ridiculous and unreasonable. Now, what are you crying for, child?"

"If I could only see Richard,—only see him for one moment!"

"That is exactly what I am going to propose. He will get better when he has seen you. I will call a coach, and we will go at once."

"Alas! Go I dare not. My father and my mother!"

"And Dick,—what of Dick, poor Dick, who is dying for you?" She went to the door, and gave the order for a coach. "Your lover, Katherine. Child, have you no heart? Shall I tell Dick you would not come with me?"

"Be not so cruel to me. That you have seen me at all, why need you say?"

"Oh! indeed, miss, do not imagine yourself the only person who values the truth. Dick always asks me, 'Have you seen her?' 'Tis my humour to be truthful, and I am always swayed by my inclination. I shall feel it to be my duty to inform him how indifferent you are. Katherine, put on your bonnet again. Here also are my veil and cloak. No one will perceive that it is you. It is the part of humanity, I assure you. Do so much for a poor soul who is at the grave's mouth."

"My father, I promised him"—

"O child! have six penny worth of common feeling about you. The man is dying for your sake. If he were your enemy, instead of your true lover, you might pity him so much. Do you not wish to see Dick?"

"My life for his life I would give."

"Words, words, my dear. It is not your life he wants. He asks only ten minutes of your time. And if you desire to see him, give yourself the pleasure. There is nothing more silly than to be too wise to be happy."

While thus alternately urging and persuading Katherine, the coach came, the disguise was assumed, and the two drove rapidly to the "King's Arms." Hyde was lying upon a couch which had been drawn close to the window. But in order to secure as much quiet as possible, he had been placed in one of the rooms at the rear of the tavern,—a large, airy room, looking into the beautiful garden which stretched away backward as far as the river. He had been in extremity. He was yet too weak to stand, too weak to endure long the strain of company or books or papers.

He heard his aunt's voice and footfall, and felt, as he always did, a vague pleasure in her advent. Whatever of life came into his chamber of suffering came through her. She brought him daily such intelligences as she thought conducive to his recovery; and it must be acknowledged that it was not always her "humour to be truthful." For Hyde had so craved news of Katherine, that she believed he would die wanting it; and she had therefore fallen, without one conscientious scruple, into the reporter's temptation,—inventing the things which ought to have taken place, and did not. "For, in faith, Nigel," she said to her husband, in excuse, "those who have nothing to tell must tell lies."



Her reports had been ingenious and diversified. "She had seen Katherine at one of the windows,—the very picture of distraction." "She had been told that Katherine was breaking her heart about him;" also, "that Elder Semple and Councillor Van Heemskirk had quarrelled because Katharine had refused to see Neil, and the elder blamed Van Heemskirk for not compelling her obedience." Whenever Hyde had been unusually depressed or unusually nervous, Mrs. Gordon had always had some such comforting fiction ready. Now, here was the real Katherine. Her very presence, her smiles, her tears, her words, would be a consolation so far beyond all hope, that the girl by her side seemed a kind of miracle to her.

She was far more than a miracle to Hyde. As the door opened, he slowly turned his head. When he saw who was really there, he uttered a low cry of joy,—a cry pitiful in its shrill weakness. In a moment Katherine was close to his side. This was no time for coyness, and she was too tender and true a woman to feel or to affect it. She kissed his hands and face, and whispered on his lips the sweetest words of love and fidelity. Hyde was in a rapture. His joyful soul made his pale face luminous. He lay still, speechless, motionless, watching and listening to her.

Mrs. Gordon had removed Katherine's veil and cloak, and considerately withdrawn to a mirror at the extremity of the room, where she appeared to be altogether occupied with her own ringlets. But, indeed, it was with Katherine and Hyde one of those supreme hours when love conquers every other feeling. Before the whole world they would have avowed their affection, their pity, and their truth.

Hyde could speak little, but there was no need of speech. Had he not nearly died for her? Was not his very helplessness a plea beyond the power of words? She had only to look at the white shadow of humanity holding her hand, and remember the gay, gallant, handsome soldier who had wooed her under the water-beeches, to feel that all the love of her life was too little to repay his devotion. And so quickly, so quickly, went the happy moments! Ere Katherine had half said, "I love thee," Mrs. Gordon reminded her that it was near the noon; "and I have an excellent plan," she continued; "you can leave my veil and cloak in the coach, and I will leave you at the first convenient place near your home. At the turn of the road, one sees nobody but your excellent father or brother, or perhaps Justice Van Gaasbeek, all of whom we may avoid, if you will but consider the time."

"Then we must part, my Katherine, for a little. When will you come again?"

This was a painful question, because Katherine felt, that, however she might excuse herself for the unforeseen stress of pity that all unaware had hurried her into this interview, she knew she could not find the same apology for one deliberate and prearranged.

"Only once more," Hyde pleaded. "I had, my Katherine, so many things to say to you. In my joy, I forgot all. Come but once more. Upon my honour, I promise to ask Katherine Van Heemskirk only this once. To-morrow? 'No.' Two days hence, then?"

"Two days hence I will come again. Then no more."

He smiled at her, and put out his hands; and she knelt again by his side, and kissed her "farewell" on his lips. And, as she put on again her cloak and veil, he drew a small volume towards him, and with trembling hands tore out of it a scrap of paper, and gave it to her.

Under the lilac hedge that night she read it, read it over and over,—the bit of paper made almost warm and sentient by Phoedria's tender petition to his beloved,—

"When you are in company with that other man, behave as if you were absent; but continue to love me by day and by night; want me, dream of me, expect me, think of me, wish for me, delight in me, be wholly with me; in short, be my very soul, as I am yours."



VIII.

"Let determined things to destiny Hold unbewailed their way."

If Katherine had lived at this day, she would probably have spent her time between her promise and its fulfilment in self-analysis and introspective reasoning with her own conscience. But the women of a century ago were not tossed about with winds of various opinions, or made foolishly subtile by arguments about principles which ought never to be associated with dissent. A few strong, plain dictates had been set before Katherine as the law of her daily life; and she knew, beyond all controversy, when she disobeyed them.

In her own heart, she called the sin she had determined to commit by its most unequivocal name. "I shall make happy Richard; but my father I shall deceive and disobey, and against my own soul there will be the lie." This was the position she admitted, but every woman is Eve in some hours of her life. The law of truth and wisdom may be in her ears, but the apple of delight hangs within her reach, and, with a full understanding of the consequences of disobedience, she takes the forbidden pleasure. And if the vocal, positive command of Divinity was unheeded by the first woman, mere mortal parents surely ought not to wonder that their commands, though dictated by truest love and clearest wisdom, are often lightly held, or even impotent against the voice of some charmer, pleading personal pleasure against duty, and self-will against the law infinitely higher and purer.

In truth, Katherine had grown very weary of the perpetual eulogies which Batavius delivered of everything respectable and conservative. A kind of stubbornness in evil followed her acceptance of evil. This time, at least, she was determined to do wrong, whatever the consequences might be. Batavius and his inflexible propriety irritated her: she had a rebellious desire to give him little moral shocks; and she deeply resented his constant injunctions to "remember that Joanna's and his own good name were, in a manner, in her keeping."

Very disagreeable she thought Batavius had grown, and she also jealously noted the influence he was exercising over Joanna. There are women who prefer secrecy to honesty, and sin to truthfulness; but Katherine was not one of them. If it had been possible to see her lover honourably, she would have much preferred it. She was totally destitute of that contemptible sentimentality which would rather invent difficulties in a love-affair than not have them, but she knew well the storm of reproach and disapproval which would answer any such request; and her thoughts were all bent toward devising some plan which would enable her to leave home early on that morning which she had promised her lover.

But all her little arrangements failed; and it was almost at the last hour of the evening previous, that circumstances offered her a reasonable excuse. It came through Batavius, who returned home later than usual, bringing with him a great many patterns of damask and figured cloth and stamped leather. At once he announced his intention of staying at home the next morning in order to have Joanna's aid in selecting the coverings for their new chairs, and counting up their cost. He had taken the strips out of his pocket with an air of importance and complaisance; and Katherine, glancing from them to her mother, thought she perceived a fleeting shadow of a feeling very much akin to her own contempt of the man's pronounced self-satisfaction. So when supper was over, and the house duties done, she determined to speak to her. Joris was at a town meeting, and Lysbet did not interfere with the lovers. Katherine found her standing at an open window, looking thoughtfully into the autumn garden.

"Mijn moeder."

"Mijn kind."

"Let me go away with Bram in the morning. Batavius I cannot bear. About every chair-cover he will call in the whole house. The only chair-covers in the world they will be. Listen, how he will talk: 'See here, Joanna. A fine piece is this; ten shillings and sixpence the yard, and good enough for the governor's house. But I am a man of some substance,—Gode zij dank!—and people will expect that I, who give every Sunday twice to the kirk, should have chairs in accordance.' Moeder, you know how it will be. To-morrow I cannot bear him. Very near quarrelling have we been for a week."

"I know, Katharine, I know. Leave, then, with Bram, and go first to Margaret Pitt's, and ask her if the new winter fashions will arrive from London this month. I heard also that Mary Blankaart has lost a silk purse, and in it five gold jacobus, and some half and quarter johannes. Ask kindly for her, and about the money; and so the morning could be passed. And look now, Katherine, peace is the best thing; and to his own house Batavius will go in a few weeks."

"That will make me glad."

"Whish, mijn kind! Thy bad thoughts should be dumb thoughts."

"Mijn moeder, sad and troubled are thy looks. What is thy sorrow?"

"For thee my heart aches often,—mine and thy good father's, too. Dost thou not suffer? Can thy mother be blind? Nothing hast thou eaten lately. Joanna says thou art restless all the night long. Thou art so changed then, that wert ever such a happy little one. Once thou did love me, Katrijntje."

"Ach, mijn moeder, still I love thee!"

"But that English soldier?"

"Never can I cease to love him. See, now, the love I give him is his love. It never was thine. For him I brought it into the world. None of thy love have I given to him. Mijn moeder, thee I would not rob for the whole world; not I!"

"For all that, kleintje, hard is the mother's lot. The dear children I nursed on my breast, they go here and they go there, with this strange one and that strange one. Last night, ere to our sleep we went, thy father read to me some words of the loving, motherlike Jacob. They are true words. Every good mother has said them, at the grave or at the bridal, 'En mij aangaande, als ik van kinderen beroofd ben, zoo ben ik beroofd!'"

There was a sad pathos in the homely old words as they dropped slowly from Lysbet's lips,—a pathos that fitted perfectly the melancholy air of the fading garden, the melancholy light of the fading day, and the melancholy regret for a happy home gradually scattering far and wide. Many a year afterward Katharine remembered the hour and the words, especially in the gray glooms of late October evenings.

The next morning was one of perfect beauty, and Katharine awoke with a feeling of joyful expectation. She dressed beautifully her pale brown hair; and her intended visit to Mary Blankaart gave her an excuse for wearing her India silk,—the pretty dress Richard had seen her first in, the dress he had so often admired. Her appearance caused some remarks, which Madam Van Heemskirk replied to; and with much of her old gayety Katherine walked between her father and brother away from home.

She paid a very short visit to the mantua-maker, and then went to Mrs. Gordon's. There was less effusion in that lady's manner than at her last interview with Katherine. She had a little spasm of jealousy; she had some doubts about Katherine's deserts; she wondered whether her nephew really adored the girl with the fervour he affected, or whether he had determined, at all sacrifices, to prevent her marriage with Neil Semple. Katherine had never before seen her so quiet and so cool; and a feeling of shame sprang up in the girl's heart. "Perhaps she was going to do something not exactly proper in Mrs. Gordon's eyes, and in advance that lady was making her sensible of her contempt."

With this thought, she rose, and with burning cheeks said, "I will go home, madam. Now I feel that I am doing wrong. To write to Captain Hyde will be the best way."

"Pray don't be foolish, Katherine. I am of a serious turn this morning, that is all. How pretty you are! and how vastly becoming your gown! But, indeed, I am going to ask you to change it. Yesterday, at the 'King's Arms,' I said my sister would arrive this morning with me; and I bespoke a little cotillon in Dick's rooms. In that dress you will be too familiar, my dear. See here, is not this the prettiest fashion? It is lately come over. So airy! so French! so all that!"

It was a light-blue gown and petticoat of rich satin, sprigged with silver, and a manteau of dark-blue velvet trimmed with bands of delicate fur. The bonnet was not one which the present generation would call "lovely;" but, in its satin depths, Katharine's fresh, sweet face looked like a rose. She hardly knew herself when the toilet was completed; and, during its progress, Mrs. Gordon recovered all her animation and interest.



Before they were ready, a coach was in waiting; and in a few minutes they stood together at Hyde's door. There was a sound of voices within; and, when they entered, Katherine saw, with a pang of disappointment, a fine, soldierly looking man in full uniform sitting by Richard's side. But Richard appeared to be in no way annoyed by his company. He was looking much better, and wore a chamber gown of maroon satin, with deep laces showing at the wrists and bosom. When Katherine entered, he was amazed and charmed with her appearance. "Come near to me, my Katherine," he said; and as Mrs. Gordon drew from her shoulders the mantle, and from her head the bonnet, and revealed more perfectly her beautiful person and dress, his love and admiration were beyond words.

With an air that plainly said, "This is the maiden for whom I fought and have suffered: is she not worthy of my devotion?" he introduced her to his friend, Captain Earle. But, even as they spoke, Earle joined Mrs. Gordon, at a call from her; and Katherine noticed that a door near which they stood was open, and that they went into the room to which it led, and that other voices then blended with theirs. But these things were as nothing. She was with her lover, alone for a moment with him; and Richard had never before seemed to her half so dear or half so fascinating.

"My Katharine," he said, "I have one tormenting thought. Night and day it consumes me like a fever. I hear that Neil Semple is well. Yesterday Captain Earle met him; he was walking with your father. He will be visiting at your house very soon. He will see you; he will speak to you. You have such obliging manners, he may even clasp this hand, my hand. Heavens! I am but a man, and I find myself unable to endure the thought."

"In my heart, Richard, there is only room for you. Neil Semple I fear and dislike."

"They will make you marry him, my darling."

"No; that they can never do."

"But I suffer in the fear. I suffer a thousand deaths. If you were only my wife, Katherine!"

She blushed divinely. She was kneeling at his side; and she put her arms around his neck, and laid her face against his. "Only your wife I will be. That is what I desire also."

"Now, Katherine? This minute, darling? Make me sure of the felicity you have promised. You have my word of honour, that as Katherine Van Heemskirk I will not again ask you to come here. But it is past my impatience to exist, and not see you. Katherine Hyde would have the right to come."

"Oh, my love, my love!"

"See how I tremble, Katherine. Life scarcely cares to inhabit a body so weak. If you refuse me, I will let it go. If you refuse me, I shall know that in your heart you expect to marry Neil Semple,—the savage who has made me to suffer unspeakable agonies."

"Never will I marry him, Richard,—never, never. My word is true. You only I will marry."

"Then now, now, Katharine. Here is the ring. Here is the special license from the governor; my aunt has made him to understand all. The clergyman and the witnesses are waiting. Some good fortune has dressed you in bridal beauty. Now, Katherine? Now, now!"



She rose, and stood white and trembling by his dear side,—speechless, also. To her father and her mother her thoughts fled in a kind of loving terror. But how could she resist the pleading of one whom she so tenderly loved, and to whom, in her maiden simplicity, she imagined herself to be so deeply bounden? That very self-abnegation which forms so large a portion of a true affection urged her to compliance far more than love itself. And when Richard ceased to speak, and only besought her with the unanswerable pathos of his evident suffering for her sake, she felt the argument to be irresistible.

"Well, my Katherine, will you pity me so far?"

"All you ask, my loved one, I will grant."

"Angel of goodness! Now?"

"At your wish, Richard."

He took her hand in a passion of joy and gratitude, and touched a small bell. Immediately there was a sudden silence, and then a sudden movement, in the adjoining room. The next moment a clergyman in canonical dress came toward them. By his side was Colonel Gordon, and Mrs. Gordon and Captain Earle followed. If Katherine had then been sensible of any misgiving or repentant withdrawal, the influences surrounding her were irresistible. But she had no distinct wish to resist them. Indeed, Colonel Gordon said afterward to his wife, "he had never seen a bride look at once so lovely and so happy." The ceremony was full of solemnity, and of that deepest joy which dims the eyes with tears, even while it wreathes the lips with smiles. During it, Katherine knelt by Richard's side; and every eye was fixed upon him, for he was almost fainting with the fatigue of his emotions; and it was with fast-receding consciousness that he whispered rapturously at its close, "My wife, my wife!"

Throughout the sleep of exhaustion which followed, she sat watching him. The company in the next room were quietly making merry "over Dick's triumph," but Katherine shook her head at all proposals to join them. The band of gold around her finger fascinated her. She was now really Richard's wife; and the first sensation of such a mighty change was, in her pure soul, one of infinite and reverent love. When Richard awoke, he was refreshed and supremely happy. Then Katherine brought him food and wine, and ate her own morsel beside him. "Our first meal we must take together," she said; and Hyde was already sensible of some exquisite change, some new and rarer tenderness and solicitude in all her ways toward him.

The noon hour was long past, but she made no mention of it. The wedding guests also lingered, talking and laughing softly, and occasionally visiting the happy bride and bridegroom in their blissful companionship. In those few hours Richard made sure his dominion over his wife's heart; and he had so much to tell her, and so many directions to give her, that, ere they were aware, the afternoon was well spent. The clergyman and the soldiers departed, Mrs. Gordon was a little weary, and Hyde was fevered with the very excess of his joy. The moment for parting had come; and, when it has, wise are those who delay it not. Hyde fixed his eyes upon his wife until Mrs. Gordon had arranged again her bonnet and manteau; then, with a smile, he shut in their white portals the exquisite picture. He could let her go with a smile now, for he knew that Katherine's absence was but a parted presence; knew that her better part remained with him, that

"Her heart was never away, But ever with his forever."

The coach was waiting; and, without delay, Katharine returned with Mrs. Gordon to her lodgings. Both were silent on the journey. When a great event has taken place, only the shallow and unfeeling chatter about it. Katherine's heart was full, even to solemnity; and Mrs. Gordon, whose affectation of fashionable levity was in a large measure pretence, had a kind and sensible nature, and she watched the quiet girl by her side with decided approval. "She may not be in the mode, but she is neither silly nor heartless," she decided; "and as for loving foolishly my poor, delightful Dick, why, any girl may be excused the folly."

Upon leaving the coach at Mrs. Gordon's, Katherine went to an inner room to resume her own dress. The India silk lay across a chair; and she took off, and folded with her accustomed neatness, the elegant suit she had worn. As she did so, she became sensible of a singular liking for it; and, when Mrs. Gordon entered the room, she said to her, "Madam, very much I desire this suit: it is my wedding-gown. Will you save it for me? Some day I may wear it again, when Richard is well."

"Indeed, Katherine, that is a womanly thought; it does you a vast deal of credit; and, upon my word, you shall have the gown. I shall be put to straits without it, to out-dress Miss Betty Lawson; but never mind, I have a few decent gowns beside it."

"Richard, too, he will like it? You think so, madam?"

"My dear, don't begin to quote Richard to me. I shall be impatient if you do. I assure you I have never considered him a prodigy." Then, kissing her fondly, "Madam Katherine Hyde, my entire service to you. Pray be sure I shall give your husband my best concern. And now I think you can walk out of the door without much notice; there is a crowd on the street, and every one is busy about their own appearance or affairs."

"The time, madam? What is the hour?"

"Indeed, I think it is much after four o'clock. Half an hour hence, you will have to bring out your excuses. I shall wish for a little devil at your elbow to help them out. Indeed, I am vastly troubled for you."

"Her excuses" Katherine had not suffered herself to consider. She could not bear to shadow the present with the future. She had, indeed, a happy faculty of leaving her emergencies to take care of themselves; and perhaps wiser people than Katherine might, with advantage, trust less to their own planning and foresight, and more to that inscrutable power which we call chance, but which so often arranges favourably the events apparently very unfavourable. For, at the best, foresight has but probabilities to work with; but chance, whose tools we know not, very often contradicts all our bad prophecies, and untangles untoward events far beyond our best prudence or wisdom. And Katharine was so happy. She was really Richard's wife; and on that solid vantage-ground she felt able to beat off trouble, and to defend her own and his rights.

"So much better you look, Katherine," said Madam Van Heemskirk. "Where have you been all the day? And did you see Mary Blankaart? And the money, is it found yet?"

The family were at the supper-table; and Joris looked kindly at his truant daughter, and motioned to the vacant chair at his side. She slipped into it, touching her father's cheek as she passed; and then she answered, "At Mary Blankaart's I was not at all, mother."

"Where, then?"

"To Margaret Pitt's I went first, and with Mrs. Gordon I have been all the day. She is lodging with Mrs. Lanier, on Pearl Street."

"Who sent you there, Katherine?"

"No one, mother. When I passed the house, my name I heard, and Mrs. Gordon came out to me; and how could I refuse her? Much had we to talk of."

Batavius saw the girl's placid face, and heard her open confession, with the greatest amazement. He looked at Joanna, and was just going to express his opinion, when Joris rose, pushed his chair a little angrily aside, and said, "There is no blame to you, Katherine. Very kind was Mrs. Gordon to you, and she is a pleasant woman. For others' faults she must not answer. That, also, is what Elder Semple says; for when past was her anger, with a heart full of sorrow she went to him and to Madam Semple."

"The sorrow that is too late, of what use is it? A very pleasant woman! Perhaps she is, but then, also, a very vain, foolish woman. Every person of discretion says so; and if I had a daughter"—

"Well, then, Batavius, a daughter thou may have some day. To the man with a tender heart, God gives his daughters. Wanting in some good thing I had felt myself, if only sons I had been trusted with. A daughter is a little white lamb in the household to teach men to be gentle men."

"I was going to say this, if I had a daughter"—

"Well, then, when thou hast, more wisdom will be given thee. Come with thy father, Katrijntje, and down the garden we will walk, and see if there are dahlias yet, and how grow the gold and the white chrysanthemums."

But all the time they were in the garden together, Joris never spoke of Mrs. Gordon, nor of Katherine's visit to her. About the flowers, and the restless swallows, and the bluebirds, who still lingered, silent and anxious, he talked; and a little also of Joanna, and her new house, and of the great wedding feast that was the desire of Batavius.

"Every one he has ever spoken to, he will ask," said Katherine; "so hard he tries to have many friends, and to be well spoken of."

"That is his way, Katrijntje; every man has his way."

"And I like not the way of Batavius."

"In business, then, he has a good name, honest and prudent. He will make thy sister a good husband."

But, though Joris said nothing to his daughter concerning her visit to Mrs. Gordon, he talked long with Lysbet about it. "What will be the end, thou may see by the child's face and air," he said; "the shadow and the heaviness are gone. Like the old Katherine she is to-night."

"And this afternoon comes here Neil Semple. Scarcely he believed me that Katherine was out. Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?"

"His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet. That to the elder is promised."

"The case now is altered. Neil Semple I like not. Little he thought of our child's good name. With his sword he wounded her most. No patience have I with the man. And his dark look thou should have seen when I said, 'Katherine is not at home.' Plainly his eyes said to me, 'Thou art lying.'"

"Well, then, what thought hast thou?"

"This: one lover must push away the other. The young dominie that is now with the Rev. Lambertus de Ronde, he is handsome and a great hero. From Surinam has he come, a man who for the cross has braved savage men and savage beasts and deadly fever. No one but he is now to be talked of in the kirk; and I would ask him to the house. Often I have seen the gown and bands put the sword and epaulets behind them."

"Well, then, at the wedding of Batavius he will be asked; and if before there is a good time, I will say, 'Come into my house, and eat and drink with us.'"

So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned. Even then, accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life. A few weeks hence, when Joanna was married, if there was in the meantime no special opportunity, the dominie could be offered as an antidote to the soldier; and, in the interim, Neil Semple was to honourably have such "chance" as his ungovernable temper had left him.

The next afternoon he called again on Katherine. His arm was still useless; his pallor and weakness so great as to win, even from Lysbet, that womanly pity which is often irrespective of desert. She brought him wine, she made him rest upon the sofa, and by her quiet air of sympathy bespoke for him a like indulgence from her daughter. Katherine sat by her small wheel, unplaiting some flax; and Neil thought her the most beautiful creature he had ever seen. He kept angrily asking himself why he had not perceived this rare loveliness before; why he had not made sure his claim ere rivals had disputed it with him. He did not understand that it was love which had called this softer, more exquisite beauty into existence. The tender light in the eyes; the flush upon the cheek; the lips, conscious of sweet words and sweeter kisses; the heart, beating to pure and loving thoughts,—in short, the loveliness of the soul, transfiguring the meaner loveliness of flesh and blood, Neil had perceived and wondered at; but he had not that kind of love experience which divines the cause from the result.

On the contrary, had Hyde been watching Katherine, he would have been certain that she was musing on her lover. He would have understood that bewitching languor, that dreaming silence, that tender air and light and colour which was the physical atmosphere of a soul communing with its beloved; a soul touching things present only with its intelligence, but reaching out to the absent with intensity of every loving emotion.

For some time the conversation was general. The meeting of the delegates, and the hospitalities offered them; the offensive and tyrannical Stamp Act; the new organization of patriots who called themselves "Sons of Liberty;" and the loss of Miss Mary Blankaart's purse,—furnished topics of mild dispute. But no one's interest was in their words, and presently Madam Van Heemskirk rose and left the room. Her husband had said, "Neil was to have some opportunities;" and the words of Joris were a law of love to Lysbet.

Neil was not slow to improve the favour. "Katherine, I wish to speak to you. I am weak and ill. Will you come here beside me?"

She rose slowly, and stood beside him; but, when he tried to take her hands, she clasped them behind her back.

"So?" he asked; and the blood surged over his white face in a crimson tide that made him for a moment or two speechless. "Why not?"

"Blood-stained are your hands. I will not take them."

The answer gave him a little comfort. It was, then, only a moral qualm. He had even no objection to such a keen sense of purity in her; and sooner or later she would forgive his action, or be made to see it with the eyes of the world in which he moved.

"Katherine, I am very sorry I had to guard my honour with my sword; and it was your love I was fighting for."

"My honour you cared not for, and with the sword I could not guard it. Of me cruel and false words have been said by every one. On the streets I was ashamed to go. Even the dominie thought it right to come and give me admonition. Batavius never since has liked or trusted me. He says Joanna's good name also I have injured. And my love,—is it a thing to be fought for? You have guarded your honour, but what of mine?"

"Your honour is my honour. They that speak ill of you, sweet Katherine, speak ill of me. Your life is my life. O my precious one, my wife!"

"Such words I will not listen to. Plainly now I tell you, your wife I will never be,—never, never, never!"

"I will love you, Katherine, beyond your dream of love. I will die rather than see you the wife of another man. For your bow of ribbon, only see what I have suffered."

"And, also, what have you made another to suffer?"

"Oh, I wish that I had slain him!"

"Not your fault is it that you did not murder him."

"An affair of honour is not murder, Katherine."

"Honour!—Name not the word. From a dozen wounds your enemy was bleeding; to go on fighting a dying man was murder, not honour. Brave some call you: in my heart I say, 'Neil Semple was a savage and a coward.'"

"Katherine, I will not be angry with you."

"I wish that you should be angry with me."

"Because some day you will be very sorry for these foolish words, my dear love."

"Your dear love I am not."

"My dear love, give me a drink of wine, I am faint."



His faint whispered words and deathlike countenance moved her to human pity. She rose for the wine, and, as she did so, called her mother; but Neil had at least the satisfaction of feeling that she had ministered to his weakness, and held the wine to his lips. From this time, he visited her constantly, unmindful of her frowns, deaf to all her unkind words, patient under the most pointed slights and neglect. And as most men rate an object according to the difficulty experienced in attaining it, Katherine became every day more precious and desirable in Neil's eyes.

In the meantime, without being watched, Katherine felt herself to be under a certain amount of restraint. If she proposed a walk into the city, Joanna or madam was sure to have the same desire. She was not forbidden to visit Mrs. Gordon, but events were so arranged as to make the visit almost impossible; and only once, during the month after her marriage, had she an interview with her husband. For even Hyde's impatience had recognized the absolute necessity of circumspection. The landlord's suspicions had been awakened, and not very certainly allayed. "There must be no scandal about my house, Captain," he said. "I merit something better from you;" and, after this injunction, it was very likely that Mrs. Gordon's companions would be closely scrutinized. True, the "King's Arms" was the great rendezvous of the military and government officials, and the landlord himself subserviently loyal; but, also, Joris Van Heemskirk was not a man with whom any good citizen would like to quarrel. Personally he was much beloved, and socially he stood as representative of a class which held in their hands commercial and political power no one cared to oppose or offend.

The marriage license had been obtained from the governor, but extraordinary influence had been used to procure it. Katherine was under age, and yet subject to her father's authority. In spite of book and priest and ring, he could retain his child for at least three years; and three years, Hyde—in talking with his aunt—called "an eternity of doubt and despair." These facts, Hyde, in his letters, had fully explained to Katherine; and she understood clearly how important the preservation of her secret was, and how much toward allaying suspicion depended upon her own behaviour. Fortunately Joanna's wedding day was drawing near, and it absorbed what attention the general public had for the Van Heemskirk family. For it was a certain thing, developing into feasting and dancing; and it quite put out of consideration suspicions which resulted in nothing, when people examined them in the clear atmosphere of Katherine's home.

At the feast of St. Nicholas the marriage was to take place. Early in November the preparations for it began. No such great event could happen without an extraordinary housecleaning; and from garret to cellar the housemaid's pail and brush were in demand. Spotless was every inch of paint, shining every bit of polished wood and glass; not a thimbleful of dust in the whole house. Toward the end of the month, Anna and Cornelia arrived, with their troops of rosy boys and girls, and their slow, substantial husbands. Batavius felt himself to be a very great man. The weight of his affairs made him solemn and preoccupied. He was not one of those light, foolish ones, who can become a husband and a householder without being sensible of the responsibilities they assume.

In the midst of all this household excitement Katherine found some opportunities of seeing Mrs. Gordon; and in the joy of receiving letters from, and sending letters to, her husband, she recovered a gayety of disposition which effectually repressed all urgent suspicions. Besides, as the eventful day drew near, there was so much to attend to. Joanna's personal goods, her dresses and household linen, her china, and wedding gifts, had to be packed; the house was decorated; and there was a most amazing quantity of delicacies to be prepared for the table.

In the middle of the afternoon of the day before the marriage, there was the loud rat-tat-tat of the brass knocker, announcing a visitor. But visitors had been constant since the arrival of Cornelia and Anna, and Katherine did not much trouble herself as to whom it might be. She was standing upon a ladder, pinning among the evergreens and scarlet berries rosettes and bows of ribbon of the splendid national colour, and singing with a delightsome cheeriness,—

"But the maid of Holland, For her own true love, Ties the splendid orange, Orange still above! O oranje boven! Orange still above!"

"Orange still above! Oh, my dear, don't trouble yourself to come down! I can pass the time tolerably well, watching you."

It was Mrs. Gordon, and she nodded and laughed in a triumphant way that very quickly brought Katherine to her side. "My dear, I kiss you. You are the top beauty of my whole acquaintance." Then, in a whisper, "Richard sends his devotion. And put your hand in my muff: there is a letter. And pray give me joy: I have just secured an invitation. I asked the councillor and madam point blank for it. Faith, I think I am a little of a favourite with them! Every one is talking of the bridegroom, and the bridegroom is talking to every one. Surely, my dear, he imagines himself to be the only man that will ever again commit matrimony. Oranje boven, everywhere!" Then, with a little exultant laugh, "Above the Tartan, at any rate. How is the young Bruce? My dear, if you don't make him suffer, I shall never forgive you. Alternate doses of hope and despair, that would be my prescription."



Katherine shook her head.

"Take notice, in particular, that I don't understand nods and shakes and sighs and signs. What is your opinion, frankly?"

"On my wedding day, as I left Richard, this he said to me: 'My honour, Katherine, is now in your keeping.' By the lifting of one eyelash, I will not stain it."

"My dear, you are perfectly charming. You always convince me that I am a better woman than I imagine myself. I shall go straight to Dick, and tell him how exactly proper you are. Really, you have more perfections than any one woman has a right to."

"To-morrow, if I have a letter ready, you will take it?"

"I will run the risk, child. But really, if you could see the way mine host of the 'King's Arms' looks at me, you would be sensible of my courage. I am persuaded he thinks I carry you under my new wadded cloak. Now, adieu. Return to your evergreens and ribbons.

"'For your own true love, Tie the splendid orange, Orange still above!'"

And so, lightly humming Katharine's favourite song, she left the busy house.

Before daylight the next morning, Batavius had every one at his post. The ceremony was to be performed in the Middle Kirk, and he took care that Joanna kept neither Dominie de Ronde nor himself waiting. He was exceedingly gratified to find the building crowded when the wedding party arrived. Joanna's dress had cost a guinea a yard, his own broadcloth and satin were of the finest quality, and he felt that the good citizens who respected him ought to have an opportunity to see how deserving he was of their esteem. Joanna, also, was a beautiful bride; and the company was entirely composed of men of honour and substance, and women of irreproachable characters, dressed with that solid magnificence gratifying to a man who, like Batavius, dearly loved respectability.

Katherine looked for Mrs. Gordon in vain; she was not in the kirk, and she did not arrive until the festival dinner was nearly over. Batavius was then considerably under the excitement of his fine position and fine fare. He sat by the side of his bride, at the right hand of Joris; and Katherine assisted her mother at the other end of the table. Peter Block, the first mate of the "Great Christopher," was just beginning to sing a song,—a foolish, sentimental ditty for so big and bluff a fellow,—in which some girl was thus entreated,—

"Come, fly with me, my own fair love; My bark is waiting in the bay, And soon its snowy wings will speed To happy lands so far away,

"And there, for us, the rose of love Shall sweetly bloom and never die. Oh, fly with me! We'll happy be Beneath fair Java's smiling sky."

"Peter, such nonsense as you sing," said Batavius, with all the authority of a skipper to his mate. "How can a woman fly when she has no wings? And to say any bark has wings is not the truth. And what kind of rose is the rose of love? Twelve kinds of roses I have chosen for my new garden, but that kind I never heard of; and I will not believe in any rose that never dies. And you also have been to Java; and well you know of the fever and blacks, and the sky that is not smiling, but hot as the place which is not heaven. No respectable person would want to be a married man in Java. I never did."

"Sing your own songs, skipper. By yourself you measure every man. If to the kingdom of heaven you did not want to go, astonished and angry you would be that any one did not like the place which is not heaven."

"Come, friends and neighbours," said Joris cheerily, "I will sing you a song; and every one knows the tune to it, and every one has heard their vaders and their moeders sing it,—sometimes, perhaps, on the great dikes of Vaderland, and sometimes in their sweet homes that the great Hendrick Hudson found out for them. Now, then, all, a song for

"'MOEDER HOLLAND.

"'We have taken our land from the sea, Its fields are all yellow with grain, Its meadows are green on the lea,— And now shall we give it to Spain? No, no, no, no!

"'We have planted the faith that is pure, That faith to the end we'll maintain; For the word and the truth must endure. Shall we bow to the Pope and to Spain? No, no, no, no!

"'Our ships are on every sea, Our honour has never a stain, Our law and our commerce are free: Are we slaves for the tyrant of Spain? No, no, no, no!

"'Then, sons of Batavia, the spade,— The spade and the pike and the main, And the heart and the hand and the blade; Is there mercy for merciless Spain? No, no, no, no!'"

By this time the enthusiasm was wonderful. The short, quick denials came hotter and louder at every verse; and it was easy to understand how these large, slow men, once kindled to white heat, were both irresistible and unconquerable. Every eye was turned to Joris, who stood in his massive, manly beauty a very conspicuous figure. His face was full of feeling and purpose, his large blue eyes limpid and shining; and, as the tumult of applause gradually ceased, he said,—



"My friends and neighbours, no poet am I; but always wrongs burn in the heart until plain prose cannot utter them. Listen to me. If we wrung the Great Charter and the right of self-taxation from Mary in A.D. 1477; if in A.D. 1572 we taught Alva, by force of arms, how dear to us was our maxim, 'No taxation without representation,'—

"Shall we give up our long-cherished right? Make the blood of our fathers in vain? Do we fear any tyrant to fight? Shall we hold out our hands for the chain? No, no, no, no!"

Even the women had caught fire at this allusion to the injustice of the Stamp Act and Quartering Acts, then hanging over the liberties of the Province; and Mrs. Gordon looked curiously and not unkindly at the latent rebels. "England will have foemen worthy of her steel if she turns these good friends into enemies," she reflected; and then, following some irresistible impulse, she rose with the company, at the request of Joris, to sing unitedly the patriotic invocation,—

"O Vaderland, can we forget thee,— Thy courage, thy glory, thy strife? O Moeder Kirk, can we forget thee? No, never! no, never! through life. No, no, no, no!"

The emotion was too intense to be prolonged; and Joris instantly pushed back his chair, and said, "Now, then, friends, for the dance. Myself I think not too old to take out the bride."

Neil Semple, who had looked like a man in a dream during the singing, went eagerly to Katherine as soon as Joris spoke of dancing. "He felt strong enough," he said, "to tread a measure in the bride dance, and he hoped she would so far honour him."

"No, I will not, Neil. I will not take your hands. Often I have told you that."

"Just for to-night, forgive me, Katherine."

"I am sorry that all must end so; I cannot dance any more with you;" and then she affected to hear her mother calling, and left him standing among the jocund crowd, hopeless and distraught with grief. He was not able to recover himself, and the noise and laughter distracted and made him angry. He had expected so much from this occasion, from its influence and associations; and it had been altogether a disappointment. Mrs. Gordon's presence troubled him, and he was not free from jealousy regarding the young dominie. He had received a call from a church in Haarlem; and the Consistory had requested him to become a member of the Coetus, and accept it. Joris had interested himself much in his favour; Katherine listened with evident pleasure to his conversation. The fire of jealousy burns with very little fuel; and Neil went away from Joanna's wedding-feast hating very cordially the young and handsome Dominie Lambertus Van Linden.

The elder noticed every thing, and he was angry at this new turn in affairs. He felt as if Joris had purposely brought the dominie into his house to further embarrass Neil; and he said to his wife after their return home, "Janet, our son Neil has lost the game for Katherine Van Heemskirk. I dinna care a bodle for it now. A man that gets the woman he wants vera seldom gets any other gude thing."

"Elder!"

"Ah, weel, there's excepts! I hae mind o' them. But Neil won't be long daunted. I looked in on him as I cam' upstairs. He was sitting wi' a law treatise, trying to read his trouble awa'. He's a brave soul. He'll hae honours and charges in plenty; and there's vera few women that are worth a gude office—if you hae to choose atween them."

"You go back on your ain words, Elder. Tak' a sleep to yoursel'. Your pillow may gie you wisdom."

And, while this conversation was taking place, they heard the pleasant voices of Van Heemskirk's departing guests, as, with snatches of song and merry laughter, they convoyed Batavius and his bride to their own home. And, when they got there, Batavius lifted up his lantern and showed them the motto he had chosen for its lintel; and it passed from lip to lip, till it was lifted altogether, and the young couple crossed their threshold to his ringing good-will,—

"Poverty—always a day's sail behind us!"



IX.

"Now many memories make solicitous The delicate love lines of her mouth, till, lit With quivering fire, the words take wing from it; As here between our kisses we sit thus Speaking of things remembered, and so sit Speechless while things forgotten call to us."

Joanna's wedding occurred at the beginning of the winter and the winter festivities. But, amid all the dining and dancing and skating, there was a political anxiety and excitement that leavened strongly every social and domestic event. The first Colonial Congress had passed the three resolutions which proved to be the key-note of resistance and of liberty. Joris had emphatically indorsed its action. The odious Stamp Act was to be met by the refusal of American merchants either to import English goods, or to sell them upon commission, until it was repealed. Homespun became fashionable. During the first three months of the year, it was a kind of disgrace to wear silk or satin or broadcloth; and a great fair was opened for the sale of articles of home manufacture. The Government kept its hand upon the sword. The people were divided into two parties, bitterly antagonistic to each other. The "Sons of Liberty" were keeping guard over the pole which symbolized their determination; the British soldiery were swaggering and boasting and openly insulting patriots on the streets; and the "New York Gazette," in flaming articles, was stimulating to the utmost the spirit of resistance to tyranny.

And these great public interests had in every family their special modifications. Joris was among the two hundred New York merchants who put their names to the resolutions of the October Congress; Bram was a conspicuous member of the "Sons of Liberty;" but Batavius, though conscientiously with the people's party, was very sensible of the annoyance and expense it put him to. Only a part of his house was finished, but the building of the rest was in progress; and many things were needed for its elegant completion, which were only to be bought from Tory importers, and which had been therefore nearly doubled in value. When liberty interfered with the private interests of Batavius, he had his doubts as to whether it was liberty. Often Bram's overt disloyalty irritated him beyond endurance. For, since he had joined the ranks of married men and householders, Batavius felt that unmarried men ought to wait for the opinions and leadership of those who had responsibilities.

Joanna talked precisely as Batavius talked. All of his enunciations met with her "Amen." There are women who are incapable of but one affection,—that one which affects them in especial,—and Joanna was of this order. "My husband" was perpetually on her tongue. She looked upon her position as a wife and housekeeper as unique. Other woman might have, during the past six thousand years, held these positions in an indifferent kind of way; but only she had ever comprehended and properly fulfilled the duties they involved. Madam Van Heemskirk smiled a little when Joanna gave her advices about her house and her duties, when she disapproved of her father's political attitude, when she looked injured by Bram's imprudence.

"Not only is wisdom born with Joanna and Batavius, it will also die with them; so they think," said Katharine indignantly, after one of Joanna's periodical visitations.

A tear twinkled in madam's eyes; but she answered, "I shall not distress myself overmuch. Always I have said, 'Joanna has a little soul. Only what is for her own good can she love.'"

"It is Batavius; and a woman must love her husband, mother."

"That is the truth: first and best of all, she must love him, Katherine; but not as the dog loves and fawns on his master, or the squaw bends down to her brave. A good woman gives not up her own principles and thoughts and ways. A good woman will remember the love of her father and mother and brother and sister, her old home, her old friends; and contempt she will not feel and show for the things of the past, which often, for her, were far better than she was worthy of."

"There is one I love, mother, love with all my soul. For him I would die. But for thee also I would die. Love thee, mother? I love thee and my father better because I love him. My mother, fret thee not, nor think that ever Joanna can really forget thee. If a daughter could forget her good father and her good mother, then with the women who sit weeping in the outer darkness, God would justly give her her portion. Such a daughter could not be."

Lysbet sadly shook her head. "When I was a little girl, Katherine, I read in a book about the old Romans, how a wicked daughter over the bleeding corpse of her father drove her chariot. She wanted his crown for her own husband; and over the warm, quivering body of her father she drove. When I read that story, Katherine, my eyes I covered with my hands. I thought such a wicked woman in the world could not be. Alas, mijn kind! often since then I have seen daughters over the bleeding hearts of their mothers and fathers drive; and frown and scold and be much injured and offended if once, in their pain and sorrow, they cry out."

"But this of me remember, mother: if I am not near thee, I shall be loving thee, thinking of thee; telling my husband, and perhaps my little children about thee,—how good thou art, how pretty, how wise. I will order my house as thou hast taught me, and my own dear ones will love me better because I love thee. If to my own mother I be not true, can my husband be sure I will be true to him, if comes the temptation strong enough? Sorry would I be if my heart only one love could hold, and ever the last love the strong love."

Still, in spite of this home trouble, and in spite of the national anxiety, the winter months went with a delightsome peace and regularity in the Van Heemskirk household. Neil Semple ceased to visit Katherine after Joanna's wedding. There was no quarrel, and no interruption to the kindness that had so long existed between the families; frequently they walked from kirk together,—Madam Semple and Madam Van Heemskirk, Joris and the elder, Katherine and Neil. But Neil never again offered her his hand; and such conversation as they had was constrained and of the most conventional character.

Very frequently, also, Dominic Van Linden spent the evening with them. Joris delighted in his descriptions of Java and Surinam; and Lysbet and Katherine knit their stockings, and listened to the conversation. It was evident that the young minister was deeply in love, and equally evident that Katharine's parents favoured his suit. But the lover felt, that, whenever he attempted to approach her as a lover, Katherine surrounded herself with an atmosphere that froze the words of admiration or entreaty upon his lips.

Joris, however, spoke for him. "He has told me how truly he loves thee. Like an honest man he loves thee, and he will make thee a wife honoured of many. No better husband can thou have, Katherine." So spoke her father to her one evening in the early spring, as they stood together over the budding snowdrops and crocus.



"There is no love in my heart for him, father."

"Neil pleases thee not, nor the dominie. Whom is it thou would have, then? Surely not that Englishman now? The whole race I hate,—swaggering, boastful tyrants, all of them. I will not give thee to any Englishman."

"If I marry not him, then will I stay with thee always."

"Nonsense that is. Thou must marry, like other women. But not him; I would never forgive thee; I would never see thy face again."

"Very hard art thou to me. I love Richard; can I love this one and then that one? If I were so light-of-love, contempt I should have from all, even from thee."

"Now, I have something to say. I have heard that some one,—very like to thee,—some one went twice or three times with Mrs. Gordon to see the man when he lay ill at the 'King's Arms.' To such talk, my anger and my scorn soon put an end; and I will not ask of thee whether it be true, or whether it be false. For a young girl I can feel."

"O father, if for me thou could feel!"

"See, now, if I thought this man would be to thee a good husband, I would say, 'God made him, and God does not make all his men Dutchmen;' and I would forgive him his light, loose life, and his wicked wasting of gold and substance, and give thee to him, with thy fortune and with my blessing. But I think he will be to thee a careless husband. He will get tired of thy beauty; thy goodness he will not value; thy money he will soon spend. Three sweethearts had he in New York before thee. Their very names, I dare say, he hath forgotten ere this."

"If Richard could make you sure, father, that he would be a good husband, would you then be content that we should be married?"

"That he cannot do. Can the night make me sure it is the day? Once very much I respected Batavius. I said, 'He is a strict man of business; honourable, careful, and always apt to make a good bargain. He does not drink nor swear, and he is a firm member of the true Church. He will make my Joanna a good husband.' That was what I thought. Now I see that he is a very small, envious, greedy man; and like himself he quickly made thy sister. This is what I fear: if thou marry that soldier, either thou must grow like him, or else he will hate thee, and make thee miserable."

"Just eighteen I am. Let us not talk of husbands. Why are you so hurried, father, to give me to this strange dominie? Little is known of him but what he says. It is easy for him to speak well of Lambertus Van Linden."

"The committee from the Great Consistory have examined his testimonials. They are very good. And I am not in a hurry to give thee away. What I fear is, that thou wilt be a foolish woman, and give thyself away."

Katherine stood with dropped head, looking apparently at the brown earth, and the green box borders, and the shoots of white and purple and gold. But what she really saw, was the pale, handsome face of her sick husband, its pathetic entreaty for her love, its joyful flush, when with bridal kisses he whispered, "Wife, wife, wife!"

Joris watched her curiously. The expression on her face he could not understand. "So happy she looks!" he thought, "and for what reason?" Katherine was the first to speak.

"Who has told you anything about Captain Hyde, father?"

"Many have spoken."

"Does he get back his good health again?"

"I hear that. When the warm days come, to England he is going. So says Jacob Cohen. What has Mrs. Gordon told thee? for to see her I know thou goes."

"Twice only have I been. I heard not of England."

"But that is certain. He will go, and what then? Thee he will quite forget, and never more will thou see or hear tell of him."

"That I believe not. In the cold winter one would have said of these flowers, 'They come no more.' But the winter goes away, and then here they are. Richard has been in the dead valley, der shaduwe des doods. Sometimes I thought, he will come back to me no more. But now I am sure I shall see him again."

Joris turned sadly away. That night he did not speak to her more. But he had the persistence which is usually associated with slow natures. He could not despair. He felt that he must go steadily on trying to move Katherine to what he really believed was her highest interest. And he permitted nothing to discourage him for very long. Dominie Van Linden was also a prudent man. He had no intention in his wooing to make haste and lose speed. As to Katherine's love troubles, he had not been left in ignorance of them. A great many people had given him such information as would enable him to keep his own heart from the wiles of the siren. He had also a wide knowledge of books and life, and in the light of this knowledge he thought that he could understand her. But the conclusion that he deliberately came to was, that Katherine had cared neither for Hyde nor Semple, and that the unpleasant termination of their courtship had made her shy of all lover-like attentions. He believed that if he advanced cautiously to her he might have the felicity of surprising and capturing her virgin affection. And just about so far does any amount of wisdom and experience help a man in a love perplexity; because every mortal woman is a different woman, and no two can be wooed and won in precisely the same way.

Amid all these different elements, political, social, and domestic, Nature kept her own even, unvarying course. The gardens grew every day fairer, the air more soft and balmy, the sunshine warmer and more cherishing. Katherine was not unhappy. As Hyde grew stronger, he spent his hours in writing long letters to his wife. He told her every trivial event, he commented on all she told him. And her letters revealed to him a soul so pure, so true, so loving, that he vowed "he fell in love with her afresh every day of his life." Katherine's communications reached her husband readily by the ordinary post; Hyde's had to be sent through Mrs. Gordon. But it was evident from the first that Katherine could not call there for them. Colonel Gordon would soon have objected to being made an obvious participant in his nephew's clandestine correspondence; and Joris would have decidedly interfered with visits sure to cause unpleasant remarks about his daughter. The medium was found in the mantua-maker, Miss Pitt. Mrs. Gordon was her most profitable customer, and Katherine went there for needles and threads and such small wares as are constantly needed in a household. And whenever she did so, Miss Pitt was sure to remark, in an after-thought kind of way, "Oh, I had nearly forgotten, miss! Here is a small parcel that Mrs. Gordon desired me to present to you."

One exquisite morning in May, Katherine stood at an open window looking over the garden and the river, and the green hills and meadows across the stream. Her heart was full of hope. Richard's recovery was so far advanced that he had taken several rides in the middle of the day. Always he had passed the Van Heemskirks' house, and always Katherine had been waiting to rain down upon his lifted face the influence of her most bewitching beauty and her tenderest smiles. She was thinking of the last of these events,—of Richard's rapid exhibition of a long, folded paper, and the singular and emphatic wave which he gave it towards the river. His whole air and attitude had expressed delight and hope; could he really mean that she was to meet him again at their old trysting-place?



As thus she happily mused, some one called her mother from the front hall. On fine mornings it was customary to leave the door standing open; and the visitor advanced to the foot of the stairs, and called once more, "Lysbet Van Heemskirk! Is there naebody in to bid me welcome?" Then Katherine knew it was Madam Semple; and she ran to her mother's room, and begged her to go down and receive the caller. For in these days Katherine dreaded Madam Semple a little. Very naturally, the mother blamed her for Neil's suffering and loss of time and prestige; and she found it hard to forgive also her positive rejection of his suit. For her sake, she herself had been made to suffer mortification and disappointment. She had lost her friends in a way which deprived her of all the fruits of her kindness. The Gordons thought Neil had transgressed all the laws of hospitality. The Semples had a similar charge to make. And it provoked Madam Semple that Mrs. Gordon continued her friendship with Katherine. Every one else blamed Katherine altogether in the matter; Mrs. Gordon had defied the use and wont of society on such occasions, and thrown the whole blame on Neil. Somehow, in her secret heart, she even blamed Lysbet a little. "Ever since I told her there was an earldom in the family, she's been daft to push her daughter into it," was her frequent remark to the elder; and he also reflected that the proposed alliance of Neil and Katharine had been received with coolness by Joris and Lysbet. "It was the soldier or the dominie, either o' them before our Neil;" and, though there was no apparent diminution of friendship, Semple and his wife frequently had a little private grumble at their own fireside.

And toward Neil, Joris had also a secret feeling of resentment. He had taken no pains to woo Katherine until some one else wanted her. It was universally conceded that he had been the first to draw his sword, and thus indulge his own temper at the expense of their child's good name and happiness. Taking these faults as rudimentary ones, Lysbet could enlarge on them indefinitely; and Joris had undoubtedly been influenced by his wife's opinions. So, below the smiles and kind words of a long friendship, there was bitterness. If there had not been, Janet Semple would hardly have paid that morning visit; for before Lysbet was half way down the stairs, Katherine heard her call out,—

"Here's a bonnie come of. But it is what a' folks expected. 'The Dauntless' sailed the morn, and Captain Earle wi' a contingent for the West Indies station. And who wi' him, guess you, but Captain Hyde, and no less? They say he has a furlough in his pocket for a twelvemonth: more like it's a clean, total dismissal. The gude ken it ought to be."

So much Katherine heard, then her mother shut to the door of the sitting-room. A great fear made her turn faint and sick. Were her father's words true? Was this the meaning of the mysterious wave of the folded paper toward the ocean? The suspicion once entertained, she remembered several little things which strengthened it. Her heart failed her; she uttered a low cry of pain, and tottered to a chair, like one wounded.

It was then ten o'clock. She thought the noon hour would never come. Eagerly she watched for Bram and her father; for any certainty would be better than such cruel fear and suspense. And, if Richard had really gone, the fact would be known to them. Bram came first. For once she felt impatient of his political enthusiasm. How could she care about liberty poles and impressed fishermen, with such a real terror at her heart? But Bram said nothing; only, as he went out, she caught him looking at her with such pitiful eyes. "What did he mean?" She turned coward then, and could not voice the question. Joris was tenderly explicit. He said to her at once, "'The Dauntless' sailed this morning. Oh, my little one, sorry I am for thee!"

"Is he gone?" Very low and slow were the words; and Joris only answered, "Yes."

Without any further question or remark, she went away. They were amazed at her calmness. And for some minutes after she had locked the door of her room, she stood still in the middle of the floor, more like one that has forgotten something, and is trying to remember, than a woman who has received a blow upon her heart. No tears came to her eyes. She did not think of weeping, or reproaching, or lamenting. The only questions she asked herself were, "How am I to get life over? Will such suffering kill me very soon?"

Joris and Lysbet talked it over together. "Cohen told me," said Joris, "that Captain Hyde called to bid him good-by. He said, 'He is a very honourable young man, a very grateful young man, and I rejoice that I was helpful in saving his life.' Then I asked him in what ship he was to sail, and he said 'The Dauntless.' She left her moorings this morning between nine and ten. She carries troops to Kingston, Captain Earle in command; and I heard that Captain Hyde has a year's furlough."

Lysbet drew her lips tight, and said nothing. The last shadow of her own dream had departed also, but it was of her child she thought. At that hour she hated Hyde; and, after Joris had gone, she said in low, angry tones, over and over, as she folded the freshly ironed linen, "I wish that Neil had killed him!" About two o'clock she went to Katherine. The girl opened her door at once to her. There was nothing to be said, no hope to offer. Joris had seen Hyde embark; he had heard Mrs. Gordon and the colonel bid him farewell. Several of his brother officers, also, and the privates of his own troop, had been on the dock to see him sail. His departure was beyond dispute.

And even while she looked at the woeful young face before her, the mother anticipated the smaller, festering sorrows that would spring from this great one,—the shame and mortification the mockery of those who had envied Katherine; the inquiries, condolences, and advices of friends; the complacent self-congratulation of Batavius, who would be certain to remind them of every provoking admonition he had given on the subject. And who does not know that these little trials of life are its hardest trials? The mother did not attempt to say one word of comfort, or hope, or excuse. She only took the child in her arms, and wept for her. At this hour she would not wound her by even an angry word concerning him.

"I loved him so much, moeder."

"Thou could not help it. Handsome, and gallant, and gay he was. I never shall forget seeing thee dance with him."

"And he did love me. A woman knows when she is loved."

"Yes, I am sure he loved thee."

"He has gone? Really gone?"

"No doubt is there of it. Stay in thy room, and have thy grief out with thyself."

"No; I will come to my work. Every day will now be the same. I shall look no more for any joy; but my duty I will do."

They went downstairs together. The clean linen, the stockings that required mending, lay upon the table. Katherine sat down to the task. Resolutely, but almost unconsciously, she put her needle through and through. Her suffering was pitiful; this little one, who a few months ago would have wept for a cut finger, now silently battling with the bitterest agony that can come to a loving woman,—the sense of cruel, unexpected, unmerited desertion. At first Lysbet tried to talk to her; but she soon saw that the effort to answer was beyond Katherine's power, and conversation was abandoned. So for an hour, an hour of speechless sorrow, they sat. The tick of the clock, the purr of the cat, the snap of a breaking thread, alone relieved the tension of silence in which this act of suffering was completed. Its atmosphere was becoming intolerable, like that of a nightmare; and Lysbet was feeling that she must speak and move, and so dissipate it, when there was a loud knock at the front door.

Katherine trembled all over. "To-day I cannot bear it, mother. No one can I see. I will go upstairs."

Ere the words were finished, Mrs. Gordon's voice was audible. She came into the room laughing, with the smell of fresh violets and the feeling of the brisk wind around her. "Dear madam," she cried, "I entreat you for a favour. I am going to take the air this afternoon: be so good as to let Katherine come with me. For I must tell you that the colonel has orders for Boston, and I may see my charming friend no more after to-day."

"Katherine, what say you? Will you go?"

"Please, mijn moeder."

"Make great haste, then." For Lysbet was pleased with the offer, and fearful that Joris might arrive, and refuse to let his daughter accept it. She hoped that Katherine would receive some comforting message; and she was glad that on this day, of all others, Captain Hyde's aunt should be seen with her. It would in some measure stop evil surmises; and it left an air of uncertainty about the captain's relationship to Katherine, which made the humiliation of his departure less keen.



"Stay not long," she whispered, "for your father's sake. There is no good, more trouble to give him."

"Well, my dear, you look like a ghost. Have you not one smile for a woman so completely in your interest? When I promised Dick this morning that I would be sure to get word to you, I was at my wits' end to discover a way. But, when I am between the horns of a dilemma, I find it the best plan to take the bull by the horns. Hence, I have made you a visit which seems to have quite nonplussed you and your good mother."

"I thought Richard had gone."

"And you were breaking your heart, that is easy to be seen. He has gone, but he will come back to-night at eight o'clock. No matter what happens, be at the river-side. Do not fail Dick: he is taking his life in his hand to see you."

"I will be there."

"La! what are you crying for, child? Poor girl! What are you crying for? Dick, the scamp? He is not worthy of such pure tears; and yet, believe me, he loves you to distraction."

"I thought he had gone—gone, without a word."

"Faith, you are not complimentary! I flatter myself that our Dick is a gentleman. I do, indeed. And, as he is yet perfectly in his senses, you might have trusted him."

"And you, do you go to Boston to-morrow?"

"The colonel does. At present, I have no such intentions. But I had to have some extraordinary excuse, and I could invent no other. However, you may say anything, if you only say it with an assurance. Madam wished me a pleasant journey. I felt a little sorry to deceive so fine a lady."

"When will Richard return?"

"Indeed, I think you will have to answer for his resolves. But he will speak for himself; and, in faith, I told him that he had come to a point where I would be no longer responsible for his actions. I am thankful to own that I have some conscience left."

The ride was not a very pleasant one. Katherine could not help feeling that Mrs. Gordon was distrait and inconsistent; and, towards its close, she became very silent. Yet she kissed her kindly, and drawing her closely for a last word, said, "Do not forget to wear your wadded cloak and hood. You may have to take the water; for the councillor is very suspicious, let me tell you. Remember what I say,—the wadded cloak and hood; and good-by, good-by, my dear."

"Shall I see you soon?"

"When we may meet again, I do not pretend to say; till then, I am entirely yours; and so again good-by."

The ride had not occupied an hour; but, when Katherine got home, Lysbet was making tea. "A cup will be good for you, mijn kind." And she smiled tenderly in the face that had been so white in its woeful anguish, but on which there was now the gleam of hope. And she perceived that Katherine had received some message, she even divined that there might be some appointment to keep; and she determined not to be too wise and prudent, but to trust Katherine for this evening with her own destiny.

That night there was a meeting at the Town Hall, and Joris left the house soon after his tea. He was greatly touched by Katharine's effort to appear cheerful; and when she followed him to the door, and, ere he opened it, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him, murmuring, "My father, mijn vader!" he could not restrain his tears.

"Mijn kind, my liefste kind!" he answered. And then his soul in its great emotion turned affectionately to the supreme fatherhood; for he whispered to himself, as he walked slowly and solemnly in the pleasant evening light: "'Gelijk sich een vader outfermt over de kinderen!' Oh, so great must be Thy pity! My own heart can tell that now."

For an hour or more Katherine sat in the broad light of the window, folding and unfolding the pieces of white linen, sewing a stitch or two here, and putting on a button or tape there. Madam passed quietly to and fro about her home duties, sometimes stopping to say a few words to her daughter. It was a little interval of household calm, full of household work; of love assured without need of words, of confidence anchored in undoubting souls. When Lysbet was ready to do so, she began to lay into the deep drawers of the presses the table-linen which Katherine had so neatly and carefully examined. Over a pile of fine damask napkins she stood, with a perplexed, annoyed face; and Katherine, detecting it, at once understood the cause.

"One is wanting of the dozen, mother. At the last cake-baking, with the dish of cake sent to Joanna it went. Back it has not come."

"For it you might go, Katherine. I like not that my sets are broken."

Katherine blushed scarlet. This was the opportunity she wanted. She wondered if her mother suspected the want; but Lysbet's face expressed only a little worry about the missing damask. Slowly, though her heart beat almost at her lips, she folded away her work, and put her needle, and thread, and thimble, and scissors, each in its proper place in her house-wife. So deliberate were all her actions, that Lysbet's suspicions were almost allayed. Yet she thought, "If out she wishes to go, leave I have now given her; and, if not, still the walk will do her some good." And yet there was in her heart just that element of doubt, which, whenever it is present, ought to make us pause and reconsider the words we are going to speak or write, and the deed we are going to do.

The nights were yet chilly,—though the first blooms were on the trees,—and the wadded cloak and hood were not so far out of season as to cause remark. As she came downstairs, the clock struck seven. There was yet an hour, and she durst not wait so long at the bottom of the garden while it was early in the evening. When her work was done, Lysbet frequently walked down it; she had a motherly interest in the budding fruit-trees and the growing flowers. And a singular reluctance to leave home assailed Katherine. If she had known that it was to be forever, her soul could not have more sensibly taken its farewell of all the dear, familiar objects of her daily life. About her mother this feeling culminated. She found her cap a little out of place; and her fingers lingered in the lace, and stroked fondly her hair and pink cheeks, until Lysbet felt almost embarrassed by the tender, but unusual show of affection.

"Now, then, go, my Katherine. To Joanna give my dear love. Tell her that very good were the cheesecakes and the krullers, and that to-morrow I will come over and see the new carpet they have bought."

And while she spoke she was retying Katherine's hood, and admiring as she did so the fair, sweet face in its quiltings or crimson satin, and the small, dimpled chin resting upon the fine bow she tied under it. Then she followed her to the door, and watched her down the road until she saw her meet Dominie Van Linden, and stand a moment holding his hand. "A message I am going for my mother," she said, as she firmly refused his escort. "Then with madam, your mother, I will sit until you return," he replied cheerfully; and Katherine answered, "That will be a great pleasure to her, sir."

A little farther she walked; but suddenly remembering that the dominie's visit would keep her mother in the house, and being made restless by the gathering of the night shadows, she turned quickly, and taking the very road up which Hyde had come the night Neil Semple challenged him, she entered the garden by a small gate at its foot, which was intended for the gardener's use. The lilacs had not much foliage, but in the dim light her dark, slim figure was undistinguishable behind them. Longingly and anxiously she looked up and down the water-way. A mist was gathering over it; and there were no boats in the channel except two pleasure-shallops, already tacking to their proper piers. "The Dauntless" had been out of sight for hours. There was not the splash of an oar, and no other river sound at that point, but the low, peculiar "wish-h-h" of the turning tide.

In the pettiest character there are unfathomable depths; and Katherine's, though yet undeveloped, was full of noble aspirations and singularly sensitive. As she stood there alone, watching and waiting in the dim light, she had a strange consciousness of some mysterious life ante-dating this life! and of a long-forgotten voice filling the ear-chambers of that spiritual body which was the celestial inhabitant of her natural body. "Richard, Richard," she murmured; and she never doubted but that he heard her.

All her senses were keenly on the alert. Suddenly there was the sound of oars, and the measure was that of steady, powerful strokes. She turned her face southward, and watched. Like a flash a boat shot out of the shadow,—a long, swift boat, that came like a Fate, rapidly and without hesitation, to her very feet. Richard quickly left it and with a few strokes it was carried back into the dimness of the central channel. Then he turned to the lilac-trees.

"Katherine!"

It was but a whisper, but she heard it. He opened his arms, and she flew to their shelter like a bird to her mate.

"My love, my wife, my beautiful wife! My true, good heart! Now, at last my own; nothing shall part us again, Katherine,—never again. I have come for you—come at all risks for you. Only five minutes the boat can wait. Are you ready?"

"I know not, Richard. My father—my mother"—

"My husband! Say that also, beloved. Am I not first? If you will not go with me, here I shall stay; and, as I am still on duty, death and dishonour will be the end. O Katherine, shall I die again for you? Will you break my sword in disgrace over my head! Faith, darling, I know that you would rather die for me."

"If one word I could send them! They suspect me not. They think you are gone. It will kill my father."



"You shall write to them on the ship. There are a dozen fishing-boats near it. We will send the letter by one of them. They will get it early in the morning. Sweet Kate, come. Here is the boat. 'The Dauntless' lies down the bay, and we have a long pull. My wife, do you need more persuasion?"

He released her from his embrace with the words, and stood holding her hands, and looking into her face. No woman is insensible to a certain kind of authority; and there was fascination as well as power in Hyde's words and manner, emphasized by the splendour of his uniform, and the air of command that seemed to be a part of it.

"It is for you to decide, Katherine. The boat is here. Even I must obey or disobey orders. Will you not go with me, your husband, to love and life and honour; or shall I stay with you, for disgrace and death? For from you I will not part again."

She had no time to consider how much truth there was in this desperate statement. The boat was waiting. Richard was wooing her consent with kisses and entreaties. Her own soul urged her, not only by the joy of his presence, but by the memory of the anguish she had endured that day in the terror of his desertion. From the first moment she had hesitated; therefore, from the first moment she had yielded. She clung to her husband's arm, she lifted her face to his, she said softly, but clearly, "I will go with you, Richard. With you I will go. Where to, I care not at all."

They stepped into the boat, and Hyde said, "Oars." Not a word was spoken. He held her within his left arm, close to his side, and partially covered with his military cloak. It was the boat belonging to the commander of "The Dauntless," and the six sailors manning it sent the light craft flying like an arrow down the bay. All the past was behind her. She had done what was irrevocable. For joy or for sorrow, her place was evermore at her husband's side. Richard understood the decision she was coming to; knew that every doubt and fear had vanished when her hand stole into his hand, when she slightly lifted her face, and whispered, "Richard."

They were practically alone upon the misty river; and Richard answered the tender call with sweet, impassioned kisses; with low, lover-like, encouraging words; with a silence that thrilled with such soft beat and subsidence of the spirit's wing, as—

"When it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring, The breath of kindred plumes against its feet."



X.

"Good people, how they wrangle! The manners that they never mend, The characters they mangle! They eat and drink, and scheme and plod, And go to church on Sunday; And many are afraid of God, And some of Mrs. Grundy."

During that same hour Joris was in the town council. There had been a stormy and prolonged session on the Quartering Act. "To little purpose have we compelled the revocation of the Stamp Act," he cried, "if the Quartering Act upon us is to be forced. We want not English soldiers here. In our homes why should we quarter them?"

All the way home he was asking himself the question; and, when he found Dominie Van Linden talking to Lysbet, he gladly discussed it over again with him. Lysbet sat beside them, knitting and listening. Until after nine o'clock Joris did not notice the absence of his daughter. "She went to Joanna's," said Lysbet calmly. No fear had yet entered her heart. Perhaps she had a vague suspicion that Katherine might also go to Mrs. Gordon's, and she was inclined to avoid any notice of the lateness of the hour. If it were even ten o'clock when she returned, Lysbet intended to make no remarks. But ten o'clock came, and the dominie went, and Joris suddenly became anxious about Katherine.

His first anger fell upon Bram. "He ought to have been at home. Then he could have gone for his sister. He is not attentive enough to Katherine; and very fond is he of hanging about Miriam Cohen's doorstep."

"What say you, Joris, about Miriam Cohen?"

"I spoke in my temper."

He would not explain his words, and Lysbet would not worry him about Katherine. "To Joanna's she went, and Batavius is in Boston. Very well, then, she has stayed with her sister."

Still, in her own heart there was a certain uneasiness. Katherine had never remained all night before without sending some message, or on a previous understanding to that effect. But the absence of Batavius, and the late hour at which she went, might account for the omission, especially as Lysbet remembered that Joanna's servant had been sick, and might be unfit to come. She was determined to excuse Katherine, and she refused to acknowledge the dumb doubt and fear that crouched at her own heart.

In the morning Joris rose very early and went into the garden. Generally this service to nature calmed and cheered him; but he came to breakfast from it, silent and cross. And Lysbet was still disinclined to open a conversation about Katharine. She had enough to do to combat her own feeling on the subject; and she was sensible that Joris, in the absence of any definite object for his anger, blamed her for permitting Katherine so much liberty.