“None of his affair it is,” said Joris.  “Of my own house and my own daughter, I can take the care.  And if he like the talk, or if he like not the talk, there it will be.  Who will stop talking because Batavius comes home?”

When Joris spoke in this tone on any subject, no one wished to continue it:  and it was not until her father had left the house, that Joanna asked her mother particularly about Katherine’s marriage.  “Was she sure of it?  Had they proofs?  Would it be legal?  More than a dozen people stopped me as I came over here,” she said, “and asked me about everything.”

“I know not how more than a dozen people knew of anything, Joanna.  But many ill-natured words will be spoken, doubtless.  Even Janet Semple came here yesterday, thinking over Katherine to exult a little.  But Katherine is a great deal beyond her to-day.  And perhaps a countess she may yet be.  That is what her husband said to thy father.”

“I knew not that he spoke to my father about Katherine.”

“Thou knows not all things.  Before thou wert married to Batavius, before Neil Semple nearly murdered him, he asked of thy father her hand.  Thou wast born on thy wedding day, I think.  All things that happened before it have from thy memory passed away.”

“Well, I am a good wife, I know that.  That also is what Batavius says.  Just before I got to the gate, I met Madam Semple and Gertrude Van Gaasbeeck; they had been shopping together.”

“Did they speak of Katherine?”

“Indeed they did.”

“Or did you speak first, Joanna?  It is an evil bird that pulls to pieces its own nest.”

“O mother, scolded I cannot be for Katherine’s folly!  My Batavius always said, ‘The favourite is Katherine.’  Always he thought that of me too much was expected.  And Madam Semple said—­and always she liked Katherine—­that very badly had she behaved for a whole year, and that the end was what everybody had looked for.  It is on me very hard,—­I who have always been modest, and taken care of my good name.  Nobody in the whole city will have one kind word to say for Katherine.  You will see that it is so, mother.”

“You will see something very different, Joanna.  Many will praise Katherine, for she to herself has done well.  And, when back she comes, at the governor’s she will visit, and with all the great ladies; and not one among them will be so lovely as Katherine Hyde.”

And, if Joanna had been in Madam Semple’s parlour a few hours later, she would have had a most decided illustration of Lysbet’s faith in the popular verdict.  Madam was sitting at her tea-table talking to the elder, who had brought home with him the full supplement to Joanna’s story.  Both were really sorry for their old friends, although there is something in the best kind of human nature that indorses the punishment of those things in which old friends differ from us.