Lysbet sadly shook her head.  “When I was a little girl, Katherine, I read in a book about the old Romans, how a wicked daughter over the bleeding corpse of her father drove her chariot.  She wanted his crown for her own husband; and over the warm, quivering body of her father she drove.  When I read that story, Katherine, my eyes I covered with my hands.  I thought such a wicked woman in the world could not be.  Alas, mijn kind! often since then I have seen daughters over the bleeding hearts of their mothers and fathers drive; and frown and scold and be much injured and offended if once, in their pain and sorrow, they cry out.”

“But this of me remember, mother:  if I am not near thee, I shall be loving thee, thinking of thee; telling my husband, and perhaps my little children about thee,—­how good thou art, how pretty, how wise.  I will order my house as thou hast taught me, and my own dear ones will love me better because I love thee.  If to my own mother I be not true, can my husband be sure I will be true to him, if comes the temptation strong enough?  Sorry would I be if my heart only one love could hold, and ever the last love the strong love.”

Still, in spite of this home trouble, and in spite of the national anxiety, the winter months went with a delightsome peace and regularity in the Van Heemskirk household.  Neil Semple ceased to visit Katherine after Joanna’s wedding.  There was no quarrel, and no interruption to the kindness that had so long existed between the families; frequently they walked from kirk together,—­Madam Semple and Madam Van Heemskirk, Joris and the elder, Katherine and Neil.  But Neil never again offered her his hand; and such conversation as they had was constrained and of the most conventional character.

Very frequently, also, Dominic Van Linden spent the evening with them.  Joris delighted in his descriptions of Java and Surinam; and Lysbet and Katherine knit their stockings, and listened to the conversation.  It was evident that the young minister was deeply in love, and equally evident that Katharine’s parents favoured his suit.  But the lover felt, that, whenever he attempted to approach her as a lover, Katherine surrounded herself with an atmosphere that froze the words of admiration or entreaty upon his lips.

Joris, however, spoke for him.  “He has told me how truly he loves thee.  Like an honest man he loves thee, and he will make thee a wife honoured of many.  No better husband can thou have, Katherine.”  So spoke her father to her one evening in the early spring, as they stood together over the budding snowdrops and crocus.

[Illustration:  They stood together over the budding snowdrops]

“There is no love in my heart for him, father.”

“Neil pleases thee not, nor the dominie.  Whom is it thou would have, then?  Surely not that Englishman now?  The whole race I hate,—­swaggering, boastful tyrants, all of them.  I will not give thee to any Englishman.”