“How could I say that?  It would not be true.”

The girl’s face was so sincere, that Mrs. Gordon found herself unable to ridicule the position.  “My dear,” she answered, “you are a miracle.  But, among all these pretty things, is there nothing you can send?”

Katherine looked thoughtfully around.  There was a small Chinese cabinet on a table:  she went to it, and took from a drawer a bow of orange ribbon.  Holding it doubtfully in her hand, she said, “My St. Nicholas ribbon.”

“La, miss, I thought you were a Calvinist!  What are you talking of the saints for?”

“St. Nicholas is our saint, our own saint; and on his day we wear orange.  Yes, even my father then, on his silk cap, puts an orange bow.  Orange is the Dutch colour, you know, madam.”

“Indeed, child, I do not know; but, if so, then it is the best colour to send to your true love.”

“For the Dutch, orange always.  On the great days of the kirk, my father puts blue with it.  Blue is the colour of the Dutch Calvinists.”

“Make me thankful to learn so much.  Then when Councillor Van Heemskirk wears his blue and orange, he says to the world, ’I am a Dutchman and a Calvinist’?”

“That is the truth.  For the Vaderland the Moeder-Kerk he wears their colours.  The English, too, they will have their own colour!”

“La, my dear, England claims every colour!  But, indeed, even an English officer may now wear an orange favour; for I remember well when our Princess Anne married the young Prince of Orange.  Oh, I assure you the House of Nassau is close kin to the House of Hanover!  And when English princesses marry Dutch princes, then surely English officers may marry Dutch maidens.  Your bow of orange ribbon is a very proper love-knot.”

“Indeed, madam, I never”—­

[Illustration:  “A very proper love-knot”]

“There, there!  I can really wait no longer. Some one is already in a fever of impatience.  ’Tis a quaintly pretty room; I am happy to have seen its curious treasures.  Good-by again, child; my service once more to your mother and sister;” and so, with many compliments, she passed chatting and laughing out of the house.

Katherine closed the best parlour, and lingered a moment in the act.  She felt that she had permitted Mrs. Gordon to make an appointment for her lover, and a guilty sense of disobedience made bitter the joy of expectation.  For absolute truthfulness is the foundation of the Dutch character; and an act of deception was not only a sin according to Katherine’s nature, but one in direct antagonism to it.  As she turned away from the closed parlour, she felt quite inclined to confide everything to her sister Joanna; but Joanna, who had to finish the cleaning of the silver, was not in that kind of a temper which invites confidence; and indeed, Katherine, looking into her calm, preoccupied face, felt her manner to be a reproof and a restraint.