ve she would have resigned them
all--but what had become of this love?

With bitter emotions, she replaced the casket in the chest and obeyed
the summons to dinner, but found no one at the great table except Adrian
and the servants. Barbara was watching Bessie.

Never had she seemed to herself so desolate, so lonely, so useless as
to-day. What could she do here? Barbara ruled in kitchen and cellar, and
she--she only stood in the way of her husband's fulfilling his duties to
the city and state.

Such were her thoughts, when the knocker again struck the door. She
approached the window. It was the doctor. Bessie had grown worse and
she, her mother, had not even inquired for the little one.

"The children, the children!" she murmured; her sorrowful features
brightened, and her heart grew lighter as she said to herself:

"I promised Peter to treat them as if they were my own, and I will
fulfil the duties I have undertaken." Full of joyous excitement, she
entered the sick-room, hastily closing the door behind her. Doctor
Bontius looked at her with a reproving glance, and Barbara said:

"Gently, gently! Bessie is just sleeping a little." Maria approached the
bed, but the physician waved her back, saying:

"Have you had the purple-fever?"

"No."

"Then you ought not to enter this room again. No other help is needed
where Frau Barbara nurses."

The burgomaster's wife made no reply, and returned to the entry. Her
heart was so heavy, so unutterably heavy. She felt like a stranger in
her husband's house. Some impulse urged her to go out of doors, and
as she wrapped her mantle around her and went downstairs, the smell of
leather rising from the bales piled in layers on the lower story, which
she had scarcely noticed before, seemed unendurable. She longed for
her mother, her friends in Delft, and her quiet, cheerful home. For
the first time she ventured to call herself unhappy and, while walking
through the streets with downcast eyes against the wind, struggled
vainly to resist some mysterious, gloomy power, that compelled her
to minutely recall everything that had resulted differently from her
expectations.

CHAPTER VIII.

After the musician had left the burgomaster's house, he went to young
Herr Matanesse Van Wibisma's aunt to get his cloak, which had not been
returned to him. He did not usually give much heed to his dress, yet he
was glad that the rain kept people in the house, for the outgrown wrap
on his sh