"Mynheer Bronck was a very good man," asserted Antonia severely.
"But thou knowest in thy heart that I am a better one," laughed Van Corlaer.
"He was the best of husbands," she insisted, trembling with a woman's anxiety to be loyal to affection which she has not too well rewarded. "It was on my account that he had his hand cut off."
"I will outdo Bronck," determined Van Corlaer. "I will have myself skinned at my death and spread out as a rug to your feet. So good a housekeeper as Antonia will beat my pelt full often, and so be obliged to think on me."
Afloat in his large personality as she always was in his presence, she yet tried to resist him.
"The relic that you joke about, Mynheer Van Corlaer, I have done worse with; I have lost it."
"Bronck's hand?"
"Yes. It hath been stolen."
"Why, I commend the taste of the thief!"
"And misfortune is sure to follow."