f me. Thou art gentle, thou art good; thou wilt entreat for me, and he
will refuse thee nought."

Catherine shared his belief that Gerard could cure him, and joined her
entreaties to his, Margaret hardly needed this. The burgomaster and his
agents having failed, she employed her own, and spent money like water.
And among these agents poor Luke enrolled himself. She met him one day
looking very thin, and spoke to him compassionately. On this he began
to blubber, and say he was more miserable than ever; he would like to be
good friends again upon almost any terms.

"Dear heart," said Margaret sorrowfully, "why can you not say to
yourself, now I am her little brother, and she is my old, married
sister, worn down with care? Say so, and I will indulge thee, and pet
thee, and make thee happier than a prince."

"Well, I will," said Luke savagely, "sooner than keep away from you
altogether. But above all give me something to do. Perchance I may have
better luck this time."

"Get me my marriage lines," said Margaret, turning sad and gloomy in a
moment.

"That is as much as to say, get me him! for where they are, he is."

"Not so. He may refuse to come nigh me; but certes he will not deny a
poor woman, who loved him once, her lines of betrothal. How can she go
without them into any honest man's house?"

"I'll get them you if they are in Holland," said Luke.

"They are as like to be in Rome," replied Margaret.

"Let us begin with Holland," observed Luke prudently.

The slave of love was furnished with money by his soft tyrant, and
wandered hither and thither, Coopering, and carpentering, and looking
for Gerard. "I can't be worse if I find the vagabone," said he, "and I
may be a hantle better."

The months rolled on, and Sybrandt improved in spirit, but not in body;
he was Margaret's pensioner for life; and a long-expected sorrow fell
upon poor Catherine, and left her still more bowed down; and she lost
her fine hearty bustling way, and never went about the house singing
now; and her nerves were shaken, and she lived in dread of some terrible
misfortune falling on Cornelis. The curse was laid on him as well as
Sybrandt. She prayed Eli, if she had been a faithful partner all these
years, to take Cornelis into his house again, and let her live awhile at
Rotterdam.

"I have good daughters here," said she; "but Margaret is so tender,
and thoughtful, and the little Gerard, he is my joy; he grows liker his
father every day