adventurers who happened to have drifted into Haarlem--the Lord only
knew for what purpose and with what hopes.

Jongejuffrouw Beresteyn had been well and rigidly brought up; she was
well educated, and possessed more knowledge than most young girls of her
social standing or of her age. Mynheer Beresteyn, her father, was a
gentleman of vast consideration in Haarlem, and as his two children had
been motherless as soon as the younger one saw the light of day, he had
been doubly careful in his endeavours that his daughter should in no way
feel the lack of that tender supervision of which it had pleased God to
deprive her.

Thus she had been taught early in life to keep herself aloof from all
persons save those approved of by her father or her brother--a young
man of sound understanding, some half dozen years older than herself. As
for the strangers who for purposes of commerce or other less avowable
motives filled the town of Haarlem with their foreign ways--which oft
were immoral and seldom sedate--she had been strictly taught to hold
these in abhorrence and never to approach such men either with word or
gesture.

Was it likely, then, that she ever would have spoken to three thriftless
knaves?--and this at a late hour of the night--but for the fact that she
had witnessed their valour from a distance, and with queenly
condescension hoped to reward them with a gracious word.

The kiss imprinted upon her hand by respectful, if somewhat bantering,
lips had greatly pleased her: such she imagined would be the homage of a
vassal proud to have attracted the notice of his lady paramount. The
curtly expressed desire to quit her presence, in order to repair to a
tavern, had roused her indignation and her contempt.

She was angered beyond what the circumstance warranted, and while the
minister preached an admirable and learned watch-night sermon she felt
her attention drifting away from the discourse and the solemnity of the
occasion, whilst her wrath against a most unworthy object was taking the
place of more pious and charitable feelings.

The preacher had taken for his text the sublime words from the New
Testament: "The greatest of these is charity." He thought that the first
day of the New Year was a splendid opportunity for the good inhabitants
of Haarlem to cast off all gossiping and back-biting ways and to live
from this day forth in greater amity and benevolence with one another.
"Love thy neighbour as thyself," he ad