en so jealously guarded by Raff's faithful vrouw.
Through many an hour of sore temptation she had dreaded almost to look
upon it, lest she might be tempted to disobey her husband's request. It
had been hard to see her children hungry and to know that the watch, if
sold, would enable the roses to bloom in their cheeks again. "But nay,"
she would exclaim, "Meitje Brinker is not one to forget her man's last
bidding, come what may."

"Take good care of this, mine vrouw," he had said as he handed it to
her--that was all. No explanation followed, for the words were scarcely
spoken when one of his fellow workmen rushed into the cottage, crying,
"Come, man! The waters are rising! You're wanted on the dikes."

Raff had started at once, and that was the last Dame Brinker saw of him
in his right mind.

On the day when Hans was in Amsterdam looking for work, and Gretel,
after performing her household labors, was wandering in search of chips,
twigs, anything that could be burned, Dame Brinker with suppressed
excitement had laid the watch in her husband's hand.

"It wasn't in reason," as she afterward said to Hans, "to wait any
longer, when a word from the father would settle all. No woman living
but would want to know how he came by that watch." Raff Brinker turned
the bright polished thing over and over in his hand, then he examined
the bit of smoothly ironed black ribbon fastened to it. He seemed hardly
to recognize it. At last he said, "Ah, I remember this! Why, you've been
rubbing it, vrouw, till it shines like a new guilder."

"Aye," said Dame Brinker, nodding her head complacently.

Raff looked at it again. "Poor boy!" he murmured, then fell into a brown
study.

This was too much for the dame. "'Poor boy!'" she echoed, somewhat
tartly. "What do you think I'm standing here for, Raff Brinker, and my
spinning awaiting, if not to hear more than that?"

"I told ye all, long since," said Raff positively as he looked up in
surprise.

"Indeed, and you never did!" retorted the vrouw.

"Well, if not, since it's no affair of ours, we'll say no more about
it," said Raff, shaking his head sadly. "Like enough while I've been
dead on the earth, all this time, the poor boy's died and been in
heaven. He looked near enough to it, poor lad!"

"Raff Brinker! If you're going to treat me this way, and I nursing you
and bearing with you since I was twenty-two years old, it's a shame.
Aye, and a disgrace," cried the vrouw, growing quite