was a
point on which he could come to no decision. His duty to the cause he
supported would not allow him to quit the house--to remain in the house
without falling in love was impossible.

Why should his political opinions ever be known? and why should not
Wilhelmina be of the same opinion as he was?--and why--Ramsay fell
asleep, putting these questions to himself, and the next morning he
resolved that things should take their chance.

It was about a fortnight since the cutter had left for England. Ramsay
was rather impatient for intelligence, but the cutter had not yet
returned. Breakfast had been over some time, Mynheer Van Krause had
descended to his warehouses, and Ramsay and Wilhelmina were sitting
together upon one of the sofas in the saloon, both reclining and free
from that restraint of which nothing but extreme intimacy will
divest you.

"And so, my Wilhelmina," said Ramsay, taking up her hand, which lay
listless at her side, and playing with her taper fingers, "you really
think William of Nassau is a good man."

"And do not you, Ramsay?" replied Wilhelmina, surprised.

"However I may rejoice at his being on the throne of England, I doubt
whether I can justify his conduct to the unfortunate King James; in
leaguing against his own father-in-law and dispossessing him of his
kingdom. Suppose now, Wilhelmina, that any fortunate man should become
one day your husband: what a cruel--what a diabolical conduct it would
be on his part--at least, so it appears to me--if, in return for your
father putting him in possession of perhaps his greatest treasure on
earth, he were to seize upon all your father's property, and leave him
a beggar, because other people were to invite him so to do."

"I never heard it placed in that light before, Ramsay; that the alliance
between King William and his father-in-law should have made him very
scrupulous, I grant, but when the happiness of a nation depended upon
it, ought not a person in William's situation to waive all minor
considerations?"

"The happiness of a nation, Wilhelmina? In what way would you prove that
so much was at stake?"

"Was not the Protestant religion at stake? Is not King James a bigoted
Catholic?"

"I grant that, and therefore ought not to reign over a Protestant
nation; but if you imagine that the happiness of any nation depends upon
his religion, I am afraid you are deceived. Religion has been made the
excuse for interfering with the happiness of a nat