CHAPTER XIII.
“GOOD HEAVENS! WHAT AN INTRODUCTION!”
“This is a curious errand, Doña de Alva,” returns the old man, bowing to the earth. “Why do you wish my daughter out of Antwerp?”
“Because the order is even now speeding from Brussels to seize upon and confine your daughter in the Spin-House.”
“The Spin-House! Lieve Hemel! An honorable confinement there might do the minx good,” says the old man severely. “She has been headstrong and willful lately. Has she made some careless breach of city regulation. Perchance she has worn train longer than burghers’ daughters are permitted. We sometimes, Doña de Alva, send our headstrong daughters and even the wives of our bosom to the wholesome silence of the Spin-House in Antwerp.”
“Not the part of the Spin-House I mean.”
“Great heavens, you don’t mean—the place for abandoned women—the harlots of the town?” gasps Bodé Volcker.
“Yes.”
“Merciful God! With the fearful scourging of welcome and farewell they give to those poor creatures?”
“Yes.”