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
som