"And this afternoon comes here Neil Semple. Scarcely he believed me that

Katherine was out. Joris, what wilt thou do about the young man?"

"His fair chance he is to have, Lysbet. That to the elder is promised."

"The case now is altered. Neil Semple I like not. Little he thought of

our child's good name. With his sword he wounded her most. No patience

have I with the man. And his dark look thou should have seen when I

said, 'Katherine is not at home.' Plainly his eyes said to me, 'Thou art

lying.'"

"Well, then, what thought hast thou?"

"This: one lover must push away the other. The young dominie that is now

with the Rev. Lambertus de Ronde, he is handsome and a great hero. From

Surinam has he come, a man who for the cross has braved savage men and

savage beasts and deadly fever. No one but he is now to be talked of in

the kirk; and I would ask him to the house. Often I have seen the gown

and bands put the sword and epaulets behind them."

"Well, then, at the wedding of Batavius he will be asked; and if before

there is a good time, I will say, 'Come into my house, and eat and drink

with us.'"

So the loving, anxious parents, in their ignorance, planned. Even then,

accustomed in all their ways to move with caution, they saw no urgent

need of interference with the regular and appointed events of life. A

few weeks hence, when Joanna was married, if there was in the meantime

no special opportunity, the dominie could be offered as an antidote to

the soldier; and, in the interim, Neil Semple was to honourably have

such "chance" as his ungovernable temper had left him.

The next afternoon he called again on Katherine. His arm was still

useless; his pallor and weakness so great as to win, even from Lysbet,

that womanly pity which is often irrespective of desert. She brought him

wine, she made him rest upon the sofa, and by her quiet air of sympathy

bespoke for him a like indulgence from her daughter. Katherine sat by

her small wheel, unplaiting some flax; and Neil thought her the most

beautiful creature he had ever seen. He kept angrily asking himself why

he had not perceived this rare loveliness before; why he had not made

sure his claim ere rivals had disputed it with him. He did not

understand that it was love which had called this softer, more exquisite

beauty into existence. The tender light in the eyes; the flush upon the

cheek; the lips, conscious of sweet words and sweeter kisses; the heart,

beating to pure and loving thoughts,--in short, the loveliness of the

soul, transfiguring the meaner loveliness of flesh and blood, Neil had

perceived and wondered at; but he had not that kind of love experience

which divines the cause from the result.




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