complexion like a sea-shell, great blue eyes, and such a quantity of pale yellow hair, that it made light of its ribbon snood, and rippled over her brow and slender white neck in bewildering curls.  She dearly loved fine clothes; and she had not removed her visiting dress of Indian silk, nor her necklace of amber beads.  And in her hands she held a great mass of lilies of the valley, which she caressed almost as if they were living things.

“Father,” she said, nestling close to his side, “look at the lilies.  How straight they are!  How strong!  Oh, the white bells full of sweet scent!  In them put your face, father.  They smell of the spring.”  Her fingers could scarcely hold the bunch she had gathered; and she buried her lovely face in them, and then lifted it, with a charming look of delight, and the cries of “Oh, oh, how delicious!”

[Illustration:  “Come awa’, my bonnie lassie”]

Long before supper was over, Madam Van Heemskirk had discovered that this night Elder Semple had a special reason for his call.  His talk of Mennon and the Anabaptists and the objectionable Lutherans, she perceived, was all surface talk; and when the meal was finished, and the girls gone to their room, she was not astonished to hear him say, “Joris, let us light another pipe.  I hae something to speak anent.  Sit still, gudewife, we shall want your word on the matter.”

“On what matter, Elder?”

“Anent a marriage between my son Neil and your daughter Katherine.”

The words fell with a sharp distinctness, not unkindly, but as if they were more than common words.  They were followed by a marked silence, a silence which in no way disturbed Semple.  He knew his friends well, and therefore he expected it.  He puffed his pipe slowly, and glanced at Joris and Lysbet Van Heemskirk.  The father’s face had not moved a muscle; the mother’s was like a handsome closed book.  She went on with her knitting, and only showed that she had heard the proposal by a small pretence of finding it necessary to count the stitches in the heel she was turning.  Still, there had been some faint, evanescent flicker on her face, some droop or lift of the eyelids, which Joris understood; for, after a glance at her, he said slowly, “For Katherine the marriage would be good, and Lysbet and I would like it.  However, we will think a little about it; there is time, and to spare.  One should not run on a new road.  The first step is what I like to be sure of; as you know, Elder, to the second step it often binds you.—­Say what you think, Lysbet.”

“Neil is to my mind, when the time comes.  But yet the child knows not perfectly her Heidelberg.  And there is more:  she must learn to help her mother about the house before she can manage a house of her own.  So in time, I say, it would be a good thing.  We have been long good friends.”

[Illustration:  Knitting]