That night there was a meeting at the Town Hall, and Joris left the
house soon after his tea. He was greatly touched by Katharine's effort
to appear cheerful; and when she followed him to the door, and, ere he
opened it, put her arms round his neck, and kissed him, murmuring, "My
father, mijn vader!" he could not restrain his tears.
"Mijn kind, my liefste kind!" he answered. And then his soul in its
great emotion turned affectionately to the supreme fatherhood; for he
whispered to himself, as he walked slowly and solemnly in the pleasant
evening light: "'Gelijk sich een vader outfermt over de kinderen!' Oh,
so great must be Thy pity! My own heart can tell that now."
For an hour or more Katherine sat in the broad light of the window,
folding and unfolding the pieces of white linen, sewing a stitch or two
here, and putting on a button or tape there. Madam passed quietly to and
fro about her home duties, sometimes stopping to say a few words to her
daughter. It was a little interval of household calm, full of household
work; of love assured without need of words, of confidence anchored in
undoubting souls. When Lysbet was ready to do so, she began to lay into
the deep drawers of the presses the table-linen which Katherine had so
neatly and carefully examined. Over a pile of fine damask napkins she
stood, with a perplexed, annoyed face; and Katherine, detecting it, at
once understood the cause.
"One is wanting of the dozen, mother. At the last cake-baking, with the
dish of cake sent to Joanna it went. Back it has not come."
"For it you might go, Katherine. I like not that my sets are broken."
Katherine blushed scarlet. This was the opportunity she wanted. She
wondered if her mother suspected the want; but Lysbet's face expressed
only a little worry about the missing damask. Slowly, though her heart
beat almost at her lips, she folded away her work, and put her needle,
and thread, and thimble, and scissors, each in its proper place in her
house-wife. So deliberate were all her actions, that Lysbet's suspicions
were almost allayed. Yet she thought, "If out she wishes to go, leave I
have now given her; and, if not, still the walk will do her some good."
And yet there was in her heart just that element of doubt, which,
whenever it is present, ought to make us pause and reconsider the words
we are going to speak or write, and the deed we are going to do.