"That is the truth. For the Vaderland the Moeder-Kerk he wears their colours. The English, too, they will have their own colour!"
"La, my dear, England claims every colour! But, indeed, even an English officer may now wear an orange favour; for I remember well when our Princess Anne married the young Prince of Orange. Oh, I assure you the House of Nassau is close kin to the House of Hanover! And when English princesses marry Dutch princes, then surely English officers may marry Dutch maidens. Your bow of orange ribbon is a very proper love-knot."
"Indeed, madam, I never"—
"There, there! I can really wait no longer. Some one is already in a fever of impatience.
'Tis a quaintly pretty room; I am happy to have seen its curious treasures. Good-by again, child; my service once more to your mother and sister;" and so, with many compliments, she passed chatting and laughing out of the house.
Katherine closed the best parlour, and lingered a moment in the act. She felt that she had permitted Mrs. Gordon to make an appointment for her lover, and a guilty sense of disobedience made bitter the joy of expectation. For absolute truthfulness is the foundation of the Dutch character; and an act of deception was not only a sin according to Katherine's nature, but one in direct antagonism to it. As she turned away from the closed parlour, she felt quite inclined to confide everything to her sister Joanna; but Joanna, who had to finish the cleaning of the silver, was not in that kind of a temper which invites confidence; and indeed, Katherine, looking into her calm, preoccupied face, felt her manner to be a reproof and a restraint.