“But first you must promise to mention this meeting to no one until after the Golden Lion weighs anchor at seven o’clock on New-Year’s night.”
“To my mother may I not?” asked Katrina.
“No, no, to nobody! Oh, remember my life is in your hands! Promise, I beg.”
His tone was so imploring the girl was touched.
“I like it not, but I promise,” she said.
“Thank you. Farewell.” And again disguised, the deserter departed, as he came, by a back window.
Feeling as though in a dream, Katrina rearranged the disordered table, and then, creeping up to bed, fell so sound asleep that she never heard Jan when he awoke the household with his “Happy New-Years.”
Gayly the sunbeams glittered on the black-and-yellow gables that 1st of January, and fully as resplendent were the maids and matrons of New York in their best muslins and brocades; while Katrina presented a very quaint, attractive little vision when she came down in her taffeta gown and embroidered stomacher, with her amber beads about her neck. Her face was hardly in accord with her attire, however, when she found every one demanding, “What has become of the krullers—the New-Year krullers?”
Madam Van Twinkle looked flushed and angry. “The beautiful cakes with which I so much trouble took!” she cried. “Ach! a bad, wicked theft it is, and a mystery unaccountable.”
“Mebbe de great ole mynheer and his vrouw gobbled ’em up,” put in Sophy.