The Bow of Orange Ribbon | Page 8

would interfere with his own plans for keeping Neil near
to him. The beautiful little Dutch maiden had been an attraction which
he was proud to exhibit, just as he was proud of his imported furniture,
his pictures, and his library. He remembered that Semple had spoken
with touching emphasis of his longing to keep his last son near home;
but must he give up his darling Katherine to further this plan?
"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.
[Illustration: The amber necklace]
She tried to recall Katharine's demeanour and words during the past
day, and she could find no cause for alarm in them. True, the child had
spent a long time in arranging her beautiful hair, and she had also
begged from her the bright amber necklace that had been her own
girlish pride; but what then? It was so natural, especially when there
was likely to be fine young gentlemen to see them. She could not
remember having noticed anything at all which ought to make her
uneasy; and what Lysbet did not see or hear, she could not imagine.
Yet the past ten hours had really been full of danger to the young girl.
Early in the afternoon, some hours before Joanna was ready to go,
Katherine was dressed for her visit to Semple House. It was the next
dwelling to the Van Heemskirks' on the river-bank, about a quarter of a
mile distant, but plainly in sight; and this very proximity gave the
mother a sense of security for her children. It was a different house
from the Dutchman's, one of those great square plain buildings, so
common in the Georgian era,--not at all picturesque, but finished inside
with handsomely carved wood-work, and with mirrors and
wall-papering brought specially for it from England.
It stood, like Van Heemskirk's, at the head of a garden sloping to the
river; and there was a good