“Well, then, Batavius, a daughter thou may have some day.  To the man with a tender heart, God gives his daughters.  Wanting in some good thing I had felt myself, if only sons I had been trusted with.  A daughter is a little white lamb in the household to teach men to be gentle men.”

“I was going to say this, if I had a daughter”—­

“Well, then, when thou hast, more wisdom will be given thee.  Come with thy father, Katrijntje, and down the garden we will walk, and see if there are dahlias yet, and how grow the gold and the white chrysanthemums.”

But all the time they were in the garden together, Joris never spoke of Mrs. Gordon, nor of Katherine’s visit to her.  About the flowers, and the restless swallows, and the bluebirds, who still lingered, silent and anxious, he talked; and a little also of Joanna, and her new house, and of the great wedding feast that was the desire of Batavius.

“Every one he has ever spoken to, he will ask,” said Katherine; “so hard he tries to have many friends, and to be well spoken of.”

“That is his way, Katrijntje; every man has his way.”

“And I like not the way of Batavius.”

“In business, then, he has a good name, honest and prudent.  He will make thy sister a good husband.”

But, though Joris said nothing to his daughter concerning her visit to Mrs. Gordon, he talked long with Lysbet about it.  “What will be the end, thou may see by the child’s face and air,” he said; “the shadow and the heaviness are gone.  Like the old Katherine she is to-night.”

“And this afternoon comes here Neil Semple.  Scarcely he believed me that Katherine was out.  Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?”

“His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet.  That to the elder is promised.”

“The case now is altered.  Neil Semple I like not.  Little he thought of our child’s good name.  With his sword he wounded her most.  No patience have I with the man.  And his dark look thou should have seen when I said, ‘Katherine is not at home.’  Plainly his eyes said to me, ’Thou art lying.’”

“Well, then, what thought hast thou?”

“This:  one lover must push away the other.  The young dominie that is now with the Rev. Lambertus de Ronde, he is handsome and a great hero.  From Surinam has he come, a man who for the cross has braved savage men and savage beasts and deadly fever.  No one but he is now to be talked of in the kirk; and I would ask him to the house.  Often I have seen the gown and bands put the sword and epaulets behind them.”

“Well, then, at the wedding of Batavius he will be asked; and if before there is a good time, I will say, ’Come into my house, and eat and drink with us.’”

So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned.  Even then, accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life.  A few weeks hence, when Joanna was married, if there was in the meantime no special opportunity, the dominie could be offered as an antidote to the soldier; and, in the interim, Neil Semple was to honourably have such “chance” as his ungovernable temper had left him.