"I like not it," he muttered. "God for the Dutchman made the Dutchwoman.
That is the right way; but I will not make angry myself for so much of
passion, so much of nothing at all to the purpose. That is the truth.
Always I have found it so."
Then Lysbet, having finished her second locking up, entered the room.
She came in as one wearied and troubled, and said with a sigh, as she
untied her apron, "By the girls' bedside I stopped one minute. Dear me!
when one is young, the sleep is sound."
"Well, then, they were awake when I passed,--that is not so much as one
quarter of the hour,--talking and laughing; I heard them."
"And now they are fast in sleep; their heads are on one pillow, and
Katherine's hand is fast clasped in Joanna's hand. The dear ones! Joris,
the elder's words have made trouble in my heart. What did the man mean?"
"Who can tell? What a man says, we know; but only God understands what
he means. But I will say this, Lysbet, and it is what I mean: if Semple
has led my daughter into the way of temptation, then, for all that is
past and gone, we shall be unfriends."
"Give yourself no kommer on that matter, Joris. Why should not our
girls see what kind of people the world is made of? Have not some of
our best maidens married into the English set? And none of them were as
beautiful as Katherine. There is no harm, I think, in a girl taking a
few steps up when she puts on the wedding ring."
"Mean you that our little daughter should marry some English
good-for-nothing? Look, then, I would rather see her white and cold in
the dead-chamber. In a word, I will have no Englishman among the Van
Heemskirks. There, let us sleep. To-night I will speak no more."
But madam could not sleep. She was quite sensible that she had tacitly
encouraged Katherine's visits to Semple House, even after she understood
that Captain Hyde and other fashionable and notable persons were
frequent visitors there. In her heart she had dreamed such dreams of
social advancement for her daughters as most mothers encourage. Her
prejudices were less deep than those of her husband; or, perhaps, they
were more powerfully combated by her greater respect for the pomps and
vanities of life. She thought rather well than ill of those people of
her own race and class who had made themselves a place in the most
exclusive ranks. During the past ten years, there had been great changes
in New York's social life: many families had become very wealthy, and
there was a rapidly growing tendency to luxurious and splendid living.
Lysbet Van Heemskirk saw no reason why her younger children should not
move with this current, when it might set them among the growing
aristocracy of the New World.