“Joris, my dear one,” she said, as they rose from the breakfast table; “Joris, I think there is a letter from your father. To the city you must go as soon as you can, for I have had a restless night, full of feeling it has been.”
“You should not go to bed to feel, mother. Night is the time for sleep.”
“And for dreams, and for many good things to come, that come not in the day. Yes, indeed, the nighttime of the body is the daytime of the soul.”
Then Joris smiled and kissing her, said, “I am going at once. If there is a letter I will send a quick rider with it.”
“But come thyself.”
“That I cannot.” “But why, then?”
“To-morrow, I will tell you.”
“That is well. Into thy mother’s heart drop all thy joys and sorrows. Thine are mine.” And she kissed him, and he went away glad and hopeful and full of tender love for the mother who understood him so sympathetically. He stood up in his stirrups to wave her a last adieu, and then he said to himself, “How fortunate I am about women! Could I have a sweeter, lovelier mistress? No! Mother? No! Grandmother? No! Friend? No! Cornelia, mother, grandmother, Madame Jacobus, all of them just what I love and need, sweet souls between me and the angels.”
It happened—but doubtless happened because so ordered—that the very hour in which Joris left Hyde Manor, Peter Van Ariens received a letter that made him very anxious. He left his office and went to see his son. “Rem,” he said, “there is now an opportunity for thee. Here has come a letter from Boston, and some one must go there; and that too in a great hurry. The house of Blume and Otis is likely to fail, and in it we have some great interests. A lawyer we must have to look after them; go thyself, and it shall be well for both of us.”
“I am ready to go—that is, I can be ready in one or two days.”