"Father," she said, nestling close to his side, "look at the lilies. How
straight they are! How strong! Oh, the white bells full of sweet scent!
In them put your face, father. They smell of the spring." Her fingers
could scarcely hold the bunch she had gathered; and she buried her
lovely face in them, and then lifted it, with a charming look of
delight, and the cries of "Oh, oh, how delicious!"
Long before supper was over, Madam Van Heemskirk had discovered that this
night Elder Semple had a special reason for his call. His talk of Mennon
and the Anabaptists and the objectionable Lutherans, she perceived, was
all surface talk; and when the meal was finished, and the girls gone to
their room, she was not astonished to hear him say, "Joris, let us light
another pipe. I hae something to speak anent. Sit still, gudewife, we
shall want your word on the matter."
"On what matter, Elder?"
"Anent a marriage between my son Neil and your daughter Katherine."
The words fell with a sharp distinctness, not unkindly, but as if they
were more than common words. They were followed by a marked silence, a
silence which in no way disturbed Semple. He knew his friends well, and
therefore he expected it. He puffed his pipe slowly, and glanced at
Joris and Lysbet Van Heemskirk. The father's face had not moved a
muscle; the mother's was like a handsome closed book. She went on with
her knitting, and only showed that she had heard the proposal by a small
pretence of finding it necessary to count the stitches in the heel she
was turning. Still, there had been some faint, evanescent flicker on her
face, some droop or lift of the eyelids, which Joris understood; for,
after a glance at her, he said slowly, "For Katherine the marriage would
be good, and Lysbet and I would like it. However, we will think a little
about it; there is time, and to spare. One should not run on a new road.
The first step is what I like to be sure of; as you know, Elder, to the
second step it often binds you.--Say what you think, Lysbet."
"Neil is to my mind, when the time comes. But yet the child knows not
perfectly her Heidelberg. And there is more: she must learn to help her
mother about the house before she can manage a house of her own. So in
time, I say, it would be a good thing. We have been long good friends."