“And,” chimed in the physician, “perhaps the sick girl may find sleep here.  Besides, it will be far more agreeable to her pride to be carried through the streets unseen, under cover of the darkness.”

“Yes, yes,” said Maria sadly, “that may be so; but I had been thinking—­People ought not to do anything too hastily.”

“Will you be glad to receive the young lady as a guest?” asked Peter.

“Why, certainly.”

“Then we won’t do things by halves, but show her all the kindness in our power.  There is Barbara beckoning; the litter has come, Doctor.  Guide the nocturnal procession in God’s name, but don’t keep us waiting too long.”

The burgomaster returned to his seat, and Bontius left the room.

Maria followed him.  In the entry, he laid his hand on her arm and asked: 

“Will you know next time, what I expect from you?”

“No,” replied the burgomaster’s wife, in a tone which sounded gay, though it revealed the disappointment she felt; “no—­but you have taught me that you are a man who understands how to spoil one’s best pleasures.”

“I will procure you others,” replied the doctor laughing and descended the stairs.  He was Peter’s oldest friend, and had made many objections to the burgomaster’s marriage with a girl so many years his junior, in these evil times, but to-day he showed himself satisfied with Van der Werff’s choice.

Maria returned to the guests, filled and offered glasses of wine to the gentlemen, and then went to her sister-in-law’s room, to help her prepare everything for the sick girl as well as possible.  She did not do so unwillingly, but it seemed as if she would have gone to the work with far greater pleasure early the next morning.

Barbara’s spacious chamber looked out upon the court-yard.  No sound could be heard there of the conversation going on between the gentlemen in the dining-room, yet it was by no means quiet among these men who, though animated by the same purpose, differed widely about the ways and means of bringing it to a successful issue.

There they sat, the brave sons of a little nation, the stately leaders of a small community, poor in numbers and means of defence, which had undertaken to bid defiance to the mightiest power and finest armies of its age.  They knew that the storm-clouds, which had been threatening for weeks on the horizon, would rise faster and faster, mass together, and burst in a furious tempest over Leyden, for Herr Van der Werff had summoned them to his house because a letter addressed to himself and Commissioner Van Bronkhorst by the Prince, contained tidings, that the Governor of King Philip of Spain had ordered Senor del Campo Valdez to besiege Leyden a second time and reduce it to subjection.  They were aware, that William of Orange could not raise an army to divert the hostile troops from their aim or relieve the city before the lapse of several months; they had experienced how