His first anger fell upon Bram.  “He ought to have been at home.  Then he could have gone for his sister.  He is not attentive enough to Katherine; and very fond is he of hanging about Miriam Cohen’s doorstep.”

“What say you, Joris, about Miriam Cohen?”

“I spoke in my temper.”

He would not explain his words, and Lysbet would not worry him about Katherine.  “To Joanna’s she went, and Batavius is in Boston.  Very well, then, she has stayed with her sister.”

Still, in her own heart there was a certain uneasiness.  Katherine had never remained all night before without sending some message, or on a previous understanding to that effect.  But the absence of Batavius, and the late hour at which she went, might account for the omission, especially as Lysbet remembered that Joanna’s servant had been sick, and might be unfit to come.  She was determined to excuse Katherine, and she refused to acknowledge the dumb doubt and fear that crouched at her own heart.

In the morning Joris rose very early and went into the garden.  Generally this service to nature calmed and cheered him; but he came to breakfast from it, silent and cross.  And Lysbet was still disinclined to open a conversation about Katharine.  She had enough to do to combat her own feeling on the subject; and she was sensible that Joris, in the absence of any definite object for his anger, blamed her for permitting Katherine so much liberty.

“Where, then, is Bram?” he asked testily.  “When I was a young man, it was the garden or the store for me before this hour.  Too much you indulge the children, Lysbet.”

“Bram was late to bed.  He was on the watch last night at the pole.  You know, Councillor, who in that kind of business has encouraged him.”

“Every night the watch is not for him.”

“Oh, then, but the bad habit is made!”

“Well, well; tell him to Joanna’s to go the first thing, and to send home Katherine.  I like her not in the house of Batavius.”

“Joanna is her sister, Joris.”

“Joanna is nothing at all in this world but the wife of Batavius.  Send for Katherine home.  I like her best to be with her mother.”

As he spoke, Bram came to the table, looking a little heavy and sleepy.  Joris rose without more words, and in a few moments the door shut sharply behind him.  “What is the matter with my father?”

“Cross he is.”  By this time Lysbet was also cross; and she continued, “No wonder at it.  Katherine has stayed at Joanna’s all night, and late to breakfast were you.  Yet ever since you were a little boy, you have heard your father say one thing, ’Late to breakfast, hurried at dinner, behind at supper;’ and I also have noticed, that, when the comfort of the breakfast is spoiled, then all the day its bad influence is felt.”

In the meantime Joris reached his store in that mood which apprehends trouble, and finds out annoyances that under other circumstances would not have any attention.  The store was in its normal condition, but he was angry at the want of order in it.  The mail was no later than usual, but he complained of its delay.  He was threatening a general reform in everything and everybody, when a man came to the door, and looked up at the name above it.