"Shall I see you soon?"
"When we may meet again, I do not pretend to say; till then, I am entirely yours; and so again good-by."
The ride had not occupied an hour; but, when Katherine got home, Lysbet was making tea. "A cup will be good for you, mijn kind." And she smiled tenderly in the face that had been so white in its woeful anguish, but on which there was now the gleam of hope. And she perceived that Katherine had received some message, she even divined that there might be some appointment to keep; and she determined not to be too wise and prudent, but to trust Katherine for this evening with her own destiny.
That night there was a meeting at the Town Hall, and Joris left the house soon after his tea. He was greatly touched by Katharine's effort to appear cheerful; and when she followed him to the door, and, ere he opened it, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him, murmuring, "My father, mijn vader!" he could not restrain his tears.
"Mijn kind, my liefste kind!" he answered. And then his soul in its great emotion turned affectionately to the supreme fatherhood; for he whispered to himself, as he walked slowly and solemnly in the pleasant evening light: "'Gelijk sich een vader outfermt over de kinderen!' Oh, so great must be Thy pity! My own heart can tell that now."
For an hour or more Katherine sat in the broad light of the window, folding and unfolding the pieces of white linen, sewing a stitch or two here, and putting on a button or tape there. Madam passed quietly to and fro about her home duties, sometimes stopping to say a few words to her daughter. It was a little interval of household calm, full of household work; of love assured without need of words, of confidence anchored in undoubting souls. When Lysbet was ready to do so, she began to lay into the deep drawers of the presses the table-linen which Katherine had so neatly and carefully examined. Over a pile of fine damask napkins she stood, with a perplexed, annoyed face; and Katherine, detecting it, at once understood the cause.
"One is wanting of the dozen, mother. At the last cake-baking, with the dish of cake sent to Joanna it went. Back it has not come."
"For it you might go, Katherine. I like not that my sets are broken."
Katherine blushed scarlet. This was the opportunity she wanted. She wondered if her mother suspected the want; but Lysbet's face expressed only a little worry about the missing damask. Slowly, though her heart beat almost at her lips, she folded away her work, and put her needle, and thread, and thimble, and scissors, each in its proper place in her house-wife. So deliberate were all her actions, that Lysbet's suspicions were almost allayed. Yet she thought, "If out she wishes to go, leave I have now given her; and, if not, still the walk will do her some good." And yet there was in her heart just that element of doubt, which, whenever it is present, ought to make us pause and reconsider the words we are going to speak or write, and the deed we are going to do.
The nights were yet chilly,—though the first blooms were on the trees,—and the wadded cloak and hood were not so far out of season as to cause remark. As she came downstairs, the clock struck seven. There was yet an hour, and she durst not wait so long at the bottom of the garden while it was early in the evening. When her work was done, Lysbet frequently walked down it; she had a motherly interest in the budding fruit-trees and the growing flowers. And a singular reluctance to leave home assailed Katherine. If she had known that it was to be forever, her soul could not have more sensibly taken its farewell of all the dear, familiar objects of her daily life. About her mother this feeling culminated. She found her cap a little out of place; and her fingers lingered in the lace, and stroked fondly her hair and pink cheeks, until Lysbet felt almost embarrassed by the tender, but unusual show of affection.