and danger until you have worked out your end. You will be preserved,
and you will again and again return;--be comforted--consoled--be
cherished--and be loved by Amine as your wife. And when it pleases Him
to call you from this world, your memory, if she survive you, Philip,
will equally be cherished in her bosom. Philip, you have given me to
decide;--dearest Philip, I am thine."

Amine extended her arms, and Philip pressed her to his bosom. That
evening Philip demanded his daughter of the father, and Mynheer Poots,
as soon as Philip opened the iron safe and displayed the guilders,
gave his immediate consent.

Father Seysen called the next day and received his answer; and three
days afterwards, the bells of the little church of Terneuse were
ringing a merry peal for the union of Amine Poots and Philip
Vanderdecken.

Chapter VII

It was not until late in the autumn that Philip was roused from his
dream of love (for what, alas! is every enjoyment of this life but a
dream?) by a summons from the captain of the vessel with whom he had
engaged to sail. Strange as it may appear, from the first day which
put him in possession of his Amine, Philip had no longer brooded over
his future destiny: occasionally it was recalled to his memory, but
immediately rejected, and, for the time, forgotten. Sufficient he
thought it to fulfil his engagement when the time should come; and
although the hours flew away, and day succeeded day, week week, and
month month, with the rapidity accompanying a life of quiet and
unvarying bliss, Philip forgot his vow in the arms of Amine, who was
careful not to revert to a topic which would cloud the brow of her
adored husband. Once, indeed, or twice, had old Poots raised the
question of Philip's departure, but the indignant frown and the
imperious command of Amine (who knew too well the sordid motives which
actuated her father, and who, at such times, looked upon him with
abhorrence) made him silent, and the old man would spend his leisure
hours in walking up and down the parlour with his eyes riveted upon
the buffets, where the silver tankards now beamed in all their
pristine brightness.

One morning, in the month of October, there was a tapping with the
knuckles at the cottage door. As this precaution implied a stranger,
Amine obeyed the summons, "I would speak with Master Philip
Vanderdecken," said the stranger, in a half-whispering sort of voice.

The party who thus addressed Amine w