I shall not go to the guillotine; I know that.  While Minister Morris is here I have a friend that can do all that can be done.  I have had a few letters from Rem, but they do not satisfy me.  He is in love, and not with you.  Will you please inform me what that means?  Say to Aunt Angelica that I am astonished at her silence; and ask our good Domine to pray that I may soon return to a country where God reigns.  Never again do I wish to spend one minute in a place where there is no God; for whatever they may call that place, its real name is hell.  Write me a long letter and tell me all the news of New York, and with my respectful remembrance to your dear father and mother, I am always your loving friend, Arenta, marquise de Tounnerre.

“Poor Arenta!” said the Doctor when Cornelia had finished the wretched epistle.  “She is however showing the mettle of the race from which she sprang.  The spirit of the men who fought Alva is in her, and I think she will be a match for Marat, if it comes to that.  Suppose you go and see Van Ariens, and give him all the comfort you can.  Are you too weary?”

“I should like to see him, I am not tired now.  Home is such a good doctor.”

“I think you will find him in his house.  He comes from his office very early these days.”

Cornelia crossed the street and was going to knock at the door, when Van Ariens hastily opened it.  His broad face shone with pleasure, and when Cornelia told him her errand, he was in a hurry of loving anxiety to hear what his child had written.

“I understand,” he said, when he had heard the letter.  “She is frightened, the poor little one! but she will smile and say ’it is nothing.’  That is her way.  However, I yet think I must go to her.”

“Do not,” urged Cornelia.  “France is now at war with Holland, and you would be recognized as a Dutchman.”

“That is so.  My tongue would tell tales on me; and to go—­even to heaven—­by the guillotine, is not what a good man would wish.  No indeed!”

“And you may see by Arenta’s letter, that she does not fear the guillotine.  Come over to-night and talk to my father and mother, and I will tell you what I saw in Philadelphia.”

“Well then, I will come.”

“Is Madame Jacobus back in New York yet?”

“She is in London.”

“But why in London?”

“That, I know not.  Two reasons I can suppose, but which is right, or if either be right, that is beyond my certainty.”

“Is her sister-in-law dead?”

“She is dead.  Her husband was an Englishman; perhaps then it is about some property in England she has gone.  If it is not that, of nothing else can I think but Captain Jacobus.  But my sister Angelica had ever two ways—­nothing at all she would say about her money or her business; but constantly, to every one, she would talk of her husband.  I think then it is money or property that has taken her to England.  For if it had been Jacobus, to the whole town she would have told it.”  Then he took both Cornelia’s hands in his, and looking at her earnestly said—­