te 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 y