She pleasantly returned the greeting and passed into the entry, where the full light of noon streamed in through the open door.

Peter had assigned quarters to the English soldiers outside, and after a consultation with the new commandant, Jan Van der Does, gave them officers.  They were probably waiting for their comrades, for when the young wife had ascended the first steps of the staircase and looked upward, she found the top of the narrow flight barred by the tall figure of a soldier.  The latter had his back towards her and was showing Bessie his dark velvet cap, surrounded by rectangular teeth, above which floated a beautiful light-blue ostrich-plume.  The child seemed to have formed a close friendship with the soldier, for, although the latter was refusing her something, the little girl laughed gaily.

Maria paused irresolutely a moment; but when the child snatched the gay cap and put it on her own curls, she thought she must check her and exclaimed warningly:  “Why, Bessie, that is no plaything for children.”

The soldier turned, stood still a moment in astonishment, raised his hand to his forehead, and then, with a few hurried bounds, sprang down the stairs and rushed up to the burgomaster’s wife.  Maria had started back in surprise; but he gave her no time to think, for stretching out both hands he exclaimed in an eager, joyous tone, with sparkling eyes:  “Maria!  Jungfrau Maria!  You here!  This is what I call a lucky day!” The young wife had instantly recognized the soldier and willingly laid her right hand in his, though not without a shade of embarrassment.

The officer’s clear, blue eyes sought hers, but she fixed her gaze on the floor, saying:  “I am no longer what I was, the young girl has become a housewife.”

“A housewife!” he exclaimed.  “How dignified that sounds!  And yet!  Yet!  You are still Jungfrau Maria!  You haven’t changed a hair.  That’s just the way you bent your head at the wedding in Delft, the way you raised your hands, lowered your eyes—­you blushed too, just as prettily.”

There was a rare melody in the voice which uttered these words with joyous, almost childlike freedom, which pleased Maria no less than the officer’s familiar manner annoyed her.  With a hasty movement she raised her head, looked steadily into the young man’s handsome face and said with dignity: 

“You see only the exterior, Junker von Dornburg; three years have made many changes within.”

“Junker von Dornburg,” he repeated, shaking his waving locks.  “I was Junker Georg in Delft.  Very different things have happened to us, dear lady, very different things.  You see I have grown a tolerable, though not huge moustache, am stouter, and the sun has bronzed my pink and white boyish face—­in short:  my outer man has changed for the worse, but within I am just the same as I was three years ago.”

Maria felt the blood again mounting into her cheeks, but she did not wish to blush and answered hastily:  “Standing still is retrograding, so you have lost three beautiful years, Herr von Dornburg.”