nd of cry: "Oh! Adrian, have you no heart that you can watch
a saint burn and come home to philosophise about his agonies? Will you
never understand? If you could have seen that poor woman this morning
who only three months ago was a happy bride." Then bursting into tears
Lysbeth turned and fled from the room, for she remembered that what was
the fate of the Vrouw Jansen to-day to-morrow might be her own.

This show of emotion quite upset Adrian whose nerves were delicate,
and who being honestly attached to his mother did not like to see her
weeping.

"Pest on the whole thing," he thought to himself, "why can't we go away
and live in some pleasant place where they haven't got any religion,
unless it is the worship of Venus? Yes, a place of orange groves, and
running streams, and pretty women with guitars, who like having sonnets
read to them, and----"

At this moment the door opened and Martin's huge and flaming poll
appeared.

"The master wants to know if you are coming to the works, Heer Adrian,
and if not will you be so good as to give me the key of the strong-box
as he needs the cash book."

With a groan Adrian rose to go, then changed his mind. No, after that
perfumed vision of green groves and lovely ladies it was impossible for
him to face the malodorous and prosaic foundry.

"Tell them I can't come," he said, drawing the key from his pocket.

"Very good, Heer Adrian, why not?"

"Because I am writing."

"Writing what?" queried Martin.

"A sonnet."

"What's a sonnet?" asked Martin blankly.

"Ill-educated clown," murmured Adrian, then--with a sudden inspiration,
"I'll show you what a sonnet is; I will read it to you. Come in and
shut the door." Martin obeyed, and was duly rewarded with the sonnet, of
which he understood nothing at all except the name of the lady, Isabella
d'Ovanda. But Martin was not without the guile of the serpent.

"Beautiful," he said, "beautiful! Read it again, master."

Adrian did so with much delight, remembering the tale of how the music
of Orpheus had charmed the very beasts.

"Ah!" said Martin, "that's a love-letter, isn't it, to that splendid,
black-eyed marchioness, whom I saw looking at you?"

"Well, not exactly," said Adrian, highly pleased, although to tell the
truth he could not recollect upon what occasion the fair Isabella had
favoured him with her kind glances. "Yet I suppose that you might call
it so, an idealised love-letter, a letter in which ardent and dis