Before the day peeped, came on a warmish rain, and the frost was all wiped away from among our feet.  I took my cloak to her and sought to hap her in the same; she bade me, rather impatiently, to keep it.

“Indeed and I will do no such thing,” said I.  “Here am I, a great, ugly lad that has seen all kinds of weather, and here are you a tender, pretty maid!  My dear, you would not put me to a shame?”

Without more words she let me cover her; which as I was doing in the darkness, I let my hand rest a moment on her shoulder, almost like an embrace.

“You must try to be more patient of your friend,” said I.

I thought she seemed to lean the least thing in the world against my bosom, or perhaps it was but fancy.

“There will be no end to your goodness,” said she.

And we went on again in silence; but now all was changed; and the happiness that was in my heart was like a fire in a great chimney.

The rain passed ere day; it was but a sloppy morning as we came into the town of Delft.  The red gabled houses made a handsome show on either hand of a canal; the servant lassies were out slestering and scrubbing at the very stones upon the public highway; smoke rose from a hundred kitchens; and it came in upon me strongly it was time to break our fasts.

“Catriona,” said I, “I believe you have yet a shilling and three baubees?”

“Are you wanting it?” said she, and passed me her purse.  “I am wishing it was five pounds!  What will you want it for?”

“And what have we been walking for all night, like a pair of waif Egyptians?” says I.  “Just because I was robbed of my purse and all I possessed in that unchancy town of Rotterdam.  I will tell you of it now, because I think the worst is over, but we have still a good tramp before us till we get to where my money is, and if you would not buy me a piece of bread, I were like to go fasting.”

She looked at me with open eyes.  By the light of the new day she was all black and pale for weariness, so that my heart smote me for her.  But as for her, she broke out laughing.

“My torture! are we beggars then?” she cried.  “You too?  O, I could have wished for this same thing!  And I am glad to buy your breakfast to you.  But it would be pleisand if I would have had to dance to get a meal to you!  For I believe they are not very well acquainted with our manner of dancing over here, and might be paying for the curiosity of that sight.”

I could have kissed her for that word, not with a lover’s mind, but in a heat of admiration.  For it always warms a man to see a woman brave.

We got a drink of milk from a country wife but new come to the town, and in a baker’s, a piece of excellent, hot, sweet-smelling bread, which we ate upon the road as we went on.  That road from Delft to the Hague is just five miles of a fine avenue shaded with trees, a canal on the one hand, on the other excellent pastures of cattle.  It was pleasant here indeed.