e
marriage."

"He had best get my leave," observed Madame Bronck.

"That is no part of his duty. But set your mind at rest; he is a young
dominie of credit. When I was in Boston I saw a rich sedan chair made
for the viceroy of Mexico, but brought to the colonies for sale. It put
a thought in my head, and I set skilled fellows to work, and they made
and we have carried through the woods the smallest, most
cunning-fashioned sedan chair that woman ever stepped into. I brought it
for the comfortable journeying of Madame Van Corlaer."

"That unknown lady will have much satisfaction in it," murmured Antonia.

"I hope so. And be better known than she was as Jonas Bronck's wife."

She colored, but hid a smile within her muffling. Her good-humored
suitor leaned toward her, resting his arms upon his knees.

"Touching a matter which has never been mentioned between us;--was the
curing of Bronck's hand well approved by you?"

"Mynheer, I am angry at Madame La Tour. Or did he," gasped Antonia, not
daring to accuse by name the colonial doctor who had managed her dark
secret, "did he show that to you?"

"Would the boldest chemist out of Amsterdam cut off and salt the member
of any honest burgher without leave of the patroon?" suggested Van
Corlaer. "Besides, my skill was needed, for I was once learned in
chemistry."

It was so surprising to see this man over-ride her terror that Antonia
stared at him.

"Mynheer, had you no dread of the sight?"

"No; and had I known you would dread it the hand had spoiled in the
curing. I thought less of Jonas Bronck, that he could bequeath a morsel
of himself like dried venison."

"Mynheer Bronck was a very good man," asserted Antonia severely.

"But thou knowest in thy heart that I am a better one," laughed Van
Corlaer.

"He was the best of husbands," she insisted, trembling with a woman's
anxiety to be loyal to affection which she has not too well rewarded.
"It was on my account that he had his hand cut off."

"I will outdo Bronck," determined Van Corlaer. "I will have myself
skinned at my death and spread out as a rug to your feet. So good a
housekeeper as Antonia will beat my pelt full often, and so be obliged
to think on me."

Afloat in his large personality as she always was in his presence, she
yet tried to resist him.

"The relic that you joke about, Mynheer Van Corlaer, I have done worse
with; I have lost it."

"Bronck's hand?"

"Yes. It hath been stolen."

"Why, I