Also, far more important events had now the public attention.  During the previous March, the Stamp Act and the Quartering Act had passed both houses of Parliament; and Virginia and Massachusetts, conscious of their dangerous character, had roused the fears of the other Provinces; and a convention of their delegates was appointed to meet during October in New York.  It was this important session which drew Neil Semple, with scarcely healed wounds, from his chamber.  The streets were noisy with hawkers crying the detested Acts, and crowded with groups of stern-looking men discussing them.  And, with the prospect of soldiers quartered in every home, women had a real grievance to talk over; and Katherine Van Heemskirk’s love-affair became an intrusion and a bore, if any one was foolish enough to name it.

[Illustration:  The streets were noisy with hawkers]

It was during this time of excitement that Katherine said one morning, at breakfast, “Bram wait one minute for me.  I am going to do an errand or two for my mother.

“It is a bad time, Katherine, you have chosen,” said Batavius.  “Full of men are the streets, excited men too, and of swaggering British soldiers, whom it would be a great pleasure to tie up in a halter.  The British I hate,—­bullying curs, everyone of them!”

“Well, I know that you hate the British, Batavius.  You say so every hour.”

“Katherine!”

“That is so, Joanna.”

Madam looked annoyed.  Joris rose, and said, “Come then, Katherine, thou shalt go with me and with Bram both.  Batavius need not then fear for thee.”

His voice was so tender that Katherine felt an unusual happiness and exultation; and she was also young enough to be glad to see the familiar streets again, and to feel the pulse of their vivid life make her heart beat quicker.

At Kip’s store, Bram left her.  She had felt so free and unremarked, that she said, “Wait not for me, Bram.  By myself I will go home.  Or perhaps I might call upon Miriam Cohen.  What dost thou think?” And Bram’s large, handsome face flushed like a girl’s with pleasure, as he answered, “That I would like, and there thou could rest until the dinner-hour.  As I go home, I could call for thee.”

So, after selecting the goods her mother needed at Kip’s, Katherine was going up Pearl Street, when she heard herself called in a familiar and urgent voice.  At the same moment a door was flung open; and Mrs. Gordon, running down the few steps, put her hand upon the girl’s shoulder.

“Oh, my dear, this is a piece of good fortune past belief!  Come into my lodgings.  Oh, indeed you shall!  I will have no excuse.  Surely you owe Dick and me some reward after the pangs we have suffered for you.”

She was leading Katherine into the house as she spoke; and Katherine had not the will, and therefore not the power, to oppose her.  She placed the girl by her side on the sofa; she took her hands, and, with a genuine grief and love, told her all that “poor Dick” had suffered and was still suffering for her sake.