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  “But the young men do not think her too young to be loved. I can see that young Sir Edward is very fond of her.”

  “Sir Edward is a very fine young man. If Charlotte were to marry him, I should make no objections to Edward. He has some money. He promises to be a good lawyer.

  “And Harleigh?”

  “Harleigh, Has too many objectionable qualities to be worth considering.”

  “Such as?”

  “Well, I will only name one, and one for which he is not responsible; but yet it would be insuperable, as far as I am concerned. His father is of low degree of the most pronounced type, and this young man is quite like him. I will have no commoner of the beggarly sort in my family.”

  “My family could be considered of low degree, but you married me.”

  The young man's faults are in breeding; they are in the blood. Charlotte shall not have anything to do with him.

  Why do you speak of such disagreeable things?”

  “Disagreeable things, Mean you that our little daughter should marry some good-for-nothing? Look, then, I would rather see her white and cold in the dead-chamber. In a word, I will have no person of objectionable qualities among the Morgan s. There, Today I will speak no more of this matter.”

  PREARRANGED LOVE.

  Elder Alexander Van Heemskirk was a great man in his sphere. He had a reputation for both riches and godliness, and was scarcely more respected in the market-place than he was in the Middle Kirk. And there was an old tie between the Van Heemskirks and the Morgans,—a tie going back to the days when the Scotch Covenanters and the Netherland Confessors clasped hands as brothers in their “churches under the cross.” Then one of the Van Heemskirks had fled for life from Scotland to Holland, and been sheltered in the house of a Morgan; and from generation to generation the friendship had been continued. So there was much real kindness and very little ceremony between the families.

  “Sit down, Elder, near the fire. A glass of hot Hollands will take the chill from you.”

  “You are more than kind, Joris, I'll now say that a small glass would be nice, what with the late hour, and the thick mist.”

  “Come, come, Elder. Mists in every country you will find, until you reach the New Jerusalem.”

  “Very true, but there's a difference in mists. Now, a Scotch mist isn’t at all unhealthy. When I was a lad, I had been out in them for a week straight, and I never felt better.” He had taken off his plaid and hat as he spoke; and he drew the chair set for him in front of the blazing logs, and stretched out his thin legs to the comforting heat.

  In the meantime Joanna Van Heemskirk daughter of Elder Van Heemskirk, had gone upstairs; and their footsteps and voices, and Charlotte's rippling laugh, could be heard distinctly through the open doors. Then Madam called, “Joanna!” and the girl came down at once. She was tying on her white apron as she entered the room; and, at a word from her mother, she began to take from the cupboards various Dutch dainties, and East Indian jars of fruits and sweetmeats, and a case of crystal bottles, and some fine lemons. She was a fair, rosy girl, with a kind, cheerful face, a pleasant voice, and a smile that was at once innocent and bright. Her fine light hair was rolled high and backward; and no one could have imagined a dress more suitable to her than the trig dark bodice, the quilted skirt, and the white apron she wore.

  Her father and mother watched her with a loving satisfaction; and though Elder Van Heemskirk was discoursing on that memorable dispute between the Caetus and Conferentie parties, which had resulted in the establishment of a new independent Dutch church in America, he was quite sensible of Joanna's presence, and of what she was doing.

  “I was aye for the ordaining of American ministers in America,” he said, as he touched the fingertips of his left hand with those of his right; and then in an aside full of deep personal interest, “Joanna, my dearie, I'll have a Holland bloater and nae other thing. And I was a proud man when I got the invite to be secretary to the first meeting of the new Caetus. Maybe it is praising green barley to say just yet that it was a wise departure; but I think so, I think so.”

  At this point, Charlotte Morgan came into the room; and the elder slightly moved his chair, and said, “Come in, my bonnie lass, and let us have a look at you.” And Charlotte laughingly pushed a stool toward the fire, and sat down between the two men on the hearthstone. She was the daintiest little maiden that ever latched a shoe,—very diminutive, with a complexion like a sea-shell, great brown eyes, and such a quantity of brown hair hair, that it made light of its ribbon snood, and rippled over her brow and slender white neck in bewildering waves. She dearly loved fine clothes; and she had not removed her outer wrap of Indian silk, nor her scarf of French design. And in her hands she held a great mass of lilies of the valley, which she caressed almost as if they were living things.

  “Father,” Charlotte 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 Morgan had discovered that this night Elder Van Heemskirk 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, let us light another pipe. I have something to speak. Sit still, good wife, we shall want your word on the matter.”

  “On what matter, Elder?”

  “A marriage between my son Sir Edward and your daughter Charlotte.”

  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 Van Heemskirk. He knew his friends well, and therefore he expected it. He puffed his pipe slowly, and glanced at Joris and Lysbet Morgan. 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 pretense 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 Charlotte 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.”

  “Sir Edward is to my mind a fine choice, when the time comes. But yet the child is still a child. 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.”

  “We have been friends for four generations, and we may safely tie the knot tighter now.

  “Surely. Well, well, it was about wedding and housekeeping I came to speak, and we'll have it out. The land between this place and my place, on the river-side, is your land, Joris. Give it to Charlotte, and I will build the young things a house; and the furnishing and plenishing we'll share between us.”

  “There is more to a wedding than house and land, Elder” Said Lysbet Morgan.

  “Vera true, madam. There's the income to meet the outgoing bills. Sir Edward will have a good practice in law, and is like to have better then I did. They'll be comfortable and respectable, madam; but I think well of you for speaking after the daily bread.”

  “Well, look now, it was not the bread-making I was thinking about. It was the love-making. A young girl should be wooed before she is married. You know how it is; and Charlotte, the little one, she thinks not of such a thing as love and marriage.”

  “Who knows what thoughts ar
e under brown locks? You'll have noticed madam that Charlotte has come more often than ordinary to Semple House lately?”

  “That is so. It was because of Colonel Gordon's wife, who likes Charlotte. She is teaching her a new stitch in her crewel-work.”

  “Hum-m-m! Mistress Gordon has likewise a new student, a very handsome lad. I have seen that he takes a deal of interest in the crewel-stitch likewise. And Sir Edward has seen it too,—for Sir Edward has set his heart on Charlotte,—and this afternoon there was a look passed between the young men I did not like. We'll be having a challenge, and two fools playing the fools for love.”

  “I am glad you spoke, Elder. Thank you. I'll turn your words over in my heart.”

  “As for Sir Edward, he's our little baron; and his mother and I would fain to keep him near us. Charlotte would be a welcome daughter to our old age, and well loved.”

  Elder Van Heemskirk, in speaking of her as already marriageable, had given Joris Morgan a shock. It seemed such a few years since he had walked her to sleep at nights, cradled in his strong arms, close to his breast; such a little while ago when she toddled about the garden at his side, her plump white hands holding his big forefinger; only yesterday that she had been going to the school, with her spelling-book and Heidelberg in her hand. When his wife had spoken of Mistress Gordon, who was teaching Charlotte the new crewel-stitch, it had appeared to him quite proper that such a child should be busy learning something in the way of needlework. “Needlework” had been given as the reason of those visits, which he now remembered had been very frequent; and he was so absolutely truthful, that he never imagined the word to be in any measure a false definition.

  Elder Van Heemskirk's implication had stunned Joris Morgan like a buffet. In his own room, he sat down on a big oak chest; and, as he thought, his mind slowly gathered. Joris knew that gay young suitors were coming and going about the Semple House, and he feared they would interfere with his own plans for keeping Charlotte near to him. The beautiful little young maiden had been an attraction which he was proud to exhibit, just as he was proud of his imported furniture, his pictures, and his library. He remembered that Elder Van Heemskirk had spoken with touching emphasis of his longing to keep his last son near home; but must he give up his darling Charlotte to further this plan?

  “I like not it,” he muttered. “Good breeding for good breeding. That is the right way; but I will not make angry myself for so much of passion, so much of nothing at all to the purpose. That is the truth. Always I have found it so.”

  Then Lysbet Morgan, having finished her second locking up, entered the room. She came in as one wearied and troubled, and said with a sigh, as she untied her apron, “By the girls' bedside I stopped one minute. Dear me! When one is young, the sleep is sound.”

  “Well, then, they were awake when I passed,—that is not so much as one quarter of the hour,—talking and laughing; I heard them.”

  “And now they are fast in sleep; their heads are on one pillow, and Charlotte's hand is fast clasped in Joanna's hand. The dear ones! Joris, the elder's words have made trouble in my heart. What did the man mean?”

  “Who can tell? What a man says, we know; but only God understands what he means. But I will say this, Lysbet, and it is what I mean: if Elder Van Heemskirk will led my daughter into the way of temptation, then, for all that is past and gone, we shall be unfriends.”

  “Give yourself no kommer on that matter, Joris. Why should not our Charlotte see what kind of people the world is made of? Have not some of our best maidens married into the Scottish set? And none of them were as beautiful as Charlotte. There is no harm, I think, in a girl taking a few steps up when she puts on the wedding ring. There, let us sleep. Tonight I will speak no more.”

  TROUBLE WITH FATHER.

  It was a very hot afternoon; and Joris Morgan's machine shop, though open to the morning-breezes, was not by any means a cool or pleasant place. Harleigh was just within the doors, upon entrance he received a cool silence from Joris Morgan; but whether the coolness was of intention or preoccupation, Harleigh did not perceive it. Once unwrapped and settled he trod to the office of Joris Morgan, a small room, intensely warm and sunny at that hour of the day.

  “Your servant, Mr Morgan.”

  “Yours, most sincerely, Mr Morgan. It is a hot day.”

  “That is so. We come near to spring time. Is there anything I can oblige you in, Harleigh?”

  Joris asked the question because the manner of the young man struck him as uneasy and constrained; and he thought, “Perhaps he has come to borrow money.” It was notorious that his employees gambled, and were often in very great need of it; and, although Joris had not any intention of risking his gold, he thought it as well to bring out the question, and have the refusal understood before unnecessary politeness made it more difficult. He was not, therefore, astonished when Harleigh Daly answered,—

  “Sir, you can indeed oblige me, and that in a matter of the greatest moment.”

  “If money it be, Harleigh, at once I may tell you, that I borrow not, and I lend not.”

  “Sir, it is not money—in particular.”

  “So?”

  “It is your daughter Charlotte.”

  Then Joris stood up, and looked steadily at the suitor. His large, amiable face had become in a moment hard and stern; and the light in his eyes was like the cold, sharp light that falls from drawn steel.

  “My daughter is not for you. Harleigh, it is a wrong to her, if you speak her name.”

  “By my honor, it is not! Though I come of as good family as any, and may not unreasonably hope to work my way up, I do assure you, sir, I humbly ask for your daughter's hand as if she were a princess.”

  “Your family! Talk not of it.”

  “I protest that I love your daughter. I wish above all things to make her my wife.”

  “Many things men desire, that they come not near to. My daughter is to another man promised.”

  “Look Sir that would be monstrous. Your daughter loves me.”

  Joris turned white to the lips. “It is not the truth,” he answered in a slow, husky voice.

  “By the sun in heaven, it is the truth! Ask her.”

  “Then a great scoundrel are you, unfit with honest men to talk. Ho! Yes, your sword pull from its scabbard. Strike. To the heart strike me. Less wicked would be the deed than the thing you have done.”

  “In faith, sir, tis no crime to win a woman's love.”

  “No crime it would be to take the money from my purse, if my consent was to it. But into my house to come, and while warm was yet my welcome, with my bread and wine in your lips, to take my gold, a shame and a crime would be. My daughter than gold is far more precious.”

  There was something very impressive in the angry sorrow of Joris. It partook of his own magnitude. Standing in front of him, it was impossible for Harleigh not to be sensible of the difference between his own slight, nervous frame, and the fair, strong massiveness of Mr. Morgan; and, in a dim way, he comprehended that this physical difference was only the outward and visible sign of a mental and moral one quite as positive and unchangeable.

  Yet he persevered in his solicitation. With a slight impatience of manner he said, “Do but hear me, sir. I have done nothing contrary to the custom of people in my condition, and I assure you that with all my soul I love your daughter.”

  “Love! So talk you. You see a girl beautiful, sweet, and innocent. Your heart, greedy and covetous, wants her as it has wanted, doubtless, many others. For yourself only you seek her. And what is it you ask then! That she should give up for you her father, mother, home, her own faith, her own people, her own country,—the poor little one!—for a cold, cheerless house among strangers, alone in the sorrows and pains that to all women come. Love! In God's name, what know you of love?”

  “No man can love her better.”

  “What say you? How, then, do I love her? I who carried her—in these arms before yet she could say to me, “Father!” His wrath had bee
n steadily growing, in spite of the mist in his eyes and the tenderness in his voice; and suddenly striking the desk a ponderous blow with his closed hand, he said with an unmistakable passion, “My daughter you shall not have!”

  “Sir, you are very uncivil; but I am thankful to know so much of your mind. And, to be plain with you, I am determined to marry your daughter if I can compass the matter in any way. It is now, then, open war between us.”

  “Stay. To me listen. Not one penny will I give to my daughter, if”—

  “To the pit with your money! Dirty money made in dirty business”—

  “You bastard!”

  “Sir, you have not a good leg which to stand.”

  You know, that, being Charlotte's father, I will challenge you.”

  “Sir, I will challenge you also a hundred times.”

  “Christus!!” roared Joris, “challenge me one hundred times. A fool I would be to answer you. See you these arms and hands? In them you will be as the child of one year. Ere beyond my reason you move me, go!” and he strode to the door and flung it open with a passion that made everyone in the shop straighten themselves, and look curiously toward the two men.

  White with rage, and with his hand fashioned in to a fist, Harleigh stamped his way through the shop to the dusty street. Then it struck him that he had not asked the name of the man to whom Charlotte was promised. He swore at himself for the omission. Whether he knew him or not, he was determined to fight him. In the meantime, the most practical revenge was to try and see Charlotte before her father had the opportunity to give her any orders regarding him. Just then he met Sir Edward, and he stopped and asked him the time.

  “It will be the half hour after nine, Harleigh. I am going home; shall I have your company, sir?”