"Well, be it so. Go."

With the words she slipped from the room; and Joris called Baltus to

bring him some hot coals, and began to fill his pipe. As he did so, he

watched Lysbet with some anxiety. She had offered him no sympathy, she

evinced no disposition to continue the conversation; and, though she

kept her face from him, he understood that all her movements expressed a

rebellious temper. In and out of the room she passed, very busy about

her own affairs, and apparently indifferent to his anxiety and sorrow.

At first Joris felt some natural anger at her attitude; but, as the

Virginia calmed and soothed him, he remembered that he had told her

nothing of his interview with Hyde, and that she might be feeling and

reasoning from a different standpoint from himself. Then the sweetness

of his nature was at once in the ascendant, and he said, "Lysbet, come

then, and talk with me about the child."

She turned the keys in her press slowly, and stood by it with them in

her hand. "What has been told thee, Joris, to-day? And who has spoken?

Tongues evil and envious, I am sure of that."

"Thou art wrong. The young man to me spoke himself. He said, 'I love

your daughter. I want to marry her.'"

"Well, then, he did no wrong. And as for Katrijntje, it is in nature

that a young girl should want a lover. It is in nature she should choose

the one she likes best. That is what I say."

"That is what I say, Lysbet. It is in nature, also, that we want too

much food and wine, too much sleep, too much pleasure, too little work.

It is in nature that our own way we want. It is in nature that the good

we hate, and the sin we love. My Lysbet, to us God gives his own good

grace, that the things that are in nature we might put below the reason

and the will."

"So hard that is, Joris."

"No, it is not; so far thou hast done the right way. When Katherine was

a babe, it was in nature that with the fire she wanted to make play. But

thou said, 'There is danger, my precious one;' and in thy arms thou

carried her out of the temptation. When older she grew, it was in nature

she said, 'I like not the school, and my Heidelberg is hard, and I

cannot learn it.' But thou answered, 'For thy good is the school, and go

thou every day; and for thy salvation is thy catechism, and I will see

that thou learn it well.' Now, then, it is in nature the child should

want this handsome stranger; but with me thou wilt certainly say, 'He is

not fit for thy happiness; he has not the true faith, he gambles, he

fights duels, he is a waster, he lives badly, he will take thee far from

thy own people and thy own home.'"




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