She nodded assent, trying to smile.

He saw that she was sad and, as this grieved him, held out his hand to her again, saying: 

“Better days will come, when I shall be permitted to be more to you than to-day.  What were you going to say just now?”

“Whether you know it or not—­is of no importance to the state.”

“But to you.  Then lift up your head again, and look at me.  Quick, love, for they are already on the stairs.”

“It isn’t worth mentioning—­a year ago to-day—­we might celebrate the anniversary of our wedding to-day.”

“The anniversary of our wedding-day!” he cried, striking his hands loudly together.  “Yes, this is the seventeenth of April, and I have forgotten it.”

He drew her tenderly towards him, but just at that moment the door opened, and Adrian ushered the baron into the room.

Van der Werff bowed courteously to the infrequent guest, then called to his blushing wife, who was retiring:  “My congratulations!  I’ll come later.  Adrian, we are to celebrate a beautiful festival to-day, the anniversary of our marriage.”

The boy glided swiftly out of the door, which he still held in his hand, for he suspected the aristocratic visitor boded him no good.

In the entry he paused to think, then hurried up the stairs, seized his plumeless cap, and rushed out of doors.  He saw his school-mates, armed with sticks and poles, ranging themselves in battle array, and would have liked to join the game of war, but for that very reason preferred not to listen to the shouts of the combatants at that moment, and ran towards the Zylhof until beyond the sound of their voices.

He now checked his steps, and in a stooping posture, often on his knees, followed the windings of a narrow canal that emptied into the Rhine.

As soon as his cap was overflowing with the white, blue, and yellow spring flowers he had gathered, he sat down on a boundary stone, and with sparkling eyes bound them into a beautiful bouquet, with which he ran home.

On the bench beside the gate sat the old maidservant with his little sister, a child six years old.  Handing the flowers, which he had kept hidden behind his back, to her, he said: 

“Take them and carry them to mother, Bessie; this is the anniversary of her wedding-day.  Give her warm congratulations too, from us both.”

The child rose, and the old servant said, “You are a good boy, Adrian.”

“Do you think so?” he asked, all the sins of the forenoon returning to his mind.

But unluckily they caused him no repentance; on the contrary, his eyes began to sparkle mischievously, and a smile hovered around his lips, as he patted the old woman’s shoulder, whispering softly in her ear: 

“The hair flew to-day, Trautchen.  My doublet and new stockings are lying up in my room under the bed.  Nobody can mend as well as you.”