“It is about three o’clock; a very suitable hour, I think.”

“Then give me your good wishes.”

“I shall be impatient to hear the result.”

“In an hour or two.”

“Oh, sir, I am not so foolish as to expect you in an hour or two!  When you have spoken with the father, you will doubtless go home with him and drink a dish of tea with your divinity.  I can imagine your unreasonable felicity, Dick,—­seas of milk, and ships of amber, and all sails set for the desired haven!  I know it all, so I hope you will spare me every detail,—­except, indeed, such as relate to pounds, shillings, and pence.”

It was a very hot afternoon; and Van Heemskirk’s store, though open to the river-breezes, was not by any means a cool or pleasant place.  Bram was just within the doors, marking “Boston” on a number of flour-barrels, which were being rapidly transferred to a vessel lying at the wharf.  He was absorbed and hurried in the matter, and received the visitor with rather a cool courtesy; but whether the coolness was of intention or preoccupation, Captain Hyde did not perceive it.  He asked for Councillor Van Heemskirk, and was taken to his office, a small room, intensely warm and sunny at that hour of the day.

“Your servant, Captain.”

“Yours, most sincerely, Councillor.  It is a hot day.”

“That is so.  We come near to midsummer.  Is there anything I can oblige you in, sir?”

Joris asked the question because the manner of the young man struck him as uneasy and constrained; and he thought, “Perhaps he has come to borrow money.”  It was notorious that his Majesty’s officers gambled, and were often in very great need of it; and, although Joris had not any intention of risking his gold, he thought it as well to bring out the question, and have the refusal understood before unnecessary politeness made it more difficult.  He was not, therefore, astonished when Captain Hyde answered,—­

“Sir, you can indeed oblige me, and that in a matter of the greatest moment.”

“If money it be, Captain, at once I may tell you, that I borrow not, and I lend not.”

“Sir, it is not money—­in particular.”

“So?”

“It is your daughter Katherine.”

Then Joris stood up, and looked steadily at the suitor.  His large, amiable face had become in a moment hard and stern; and the light in his eyes was like the cold, sharp light that falls from drawn steel.

“My daughter is not for you to name.  Sir, it is a wrong to her, if you speak her name.”

“By my honour, it is not!  Though I come of as good family as any in England, and may not unreasonably hope to inherit its earldom, I do assure you, sir, I sue as humbly for your daughter’s hand as if she were a princess.”

“Your family!  Talk not of it.  King nor kaiser do I count better men than my own fore-goers.  Like to like, that is what I say.  Your wife seek, Captain, among your own women.”