,
seek your father, and, if you can, and he requires your aid, then save
him. But, Philip do you imagine that a task like this, so high, is to
be accomplished at one trial? O! no; if you have been so chosen to
fulfil it, you will be preserved through difficulty 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 SEVEN.

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
though 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, th