behold her crown!"

"Silly child! look at her red hair! Would the Virgin be seen in red
hair? She who had the pick of all the colours ten thousand years before
the world began."

At this moment an anxious face was insinuated round the edge of the open
door: it was their neighbour Peter Buyskens.

"What is to do?" said he in a cautious whisper. "We can hear you all
across the street. What on earth is to do?"

"Oh, neighbour! What is to do? Why, here is the burgomaster blackening
our Gerard."

"Stop!" cried Van Swieten. "Peter Buyskens is come in the nick of time.
He knows father and daughter both. They cast their glamour on him."

"What! is she a witch too?"

"Else the egg takes not after the bird. Why is her father called the
magician? I tell you they bewitched this very Peter here; they cast
unholy spells on him, and cured him of the colic: now, Peter, look and
tell me who is that? and you be silent, women, for a moment, if you can;
who is it, Peter?"

"Well, to be sure!" said Peter, in reply; and his eye seemed fascinated
by the picture.

"Who is it?" repeated Ghysbrecht impetuously.

Peter Buyskens smiled. "Why, you know as well as I do; but what have
they put a crown on her for? I never saw her in a crown, for my part."

"Man alive! Can't you open your great jaws, and just speak a wench's
name plain out to oblige three people?"

"I'd do a great deal more to oblige one of you than that, burgomaster.
If it isn't as natural as life!"

"Curse the man! he won't, he won't--curse him!"

"Why, what have I done now?"

"Oh, sir!" said little Kate, "for pity's sake tell us; are these the
features of a living woman, of--of--Margaret Brandt?"

"A mirror is not truer, my little maid."

"But is it she, sir, for very certain?"

"Why, who else should it be?"

"Now, why couldn't you say so at once?" snarled Ghysbrecht.

"I did say so, as plain as I could speak," snapped Peter; and they
growled over this small bone of contention so zealously, that they did
not see Catherine and her daughter had thrown their aprons over their
heads, and were rocking to and fro in deep distress. The next moment
Elias came in from the shop, and stood aghast. Catherine, though her
face was covered, knew his footstep.

"That is my poor man," she sobbed. "Tell him, good Peter Buyskens, for I
have not the courage."

Elias turned pale. The presence of the burgomaster in his house, after
so many years of coolness, coupled with his