"I can do these things also, father. The lady loves me, and will be
unhappy not to see me."
"Then, let her come here and see thee. That will be the proper thing.
Why not? She is not better than thou art. Once thy mother has called on
her; thou and Joanna, a few times too often. Now, then, let her call on
thee. Always honour thyself, as well as others. That is the Dutch way;
that is the right way. Mind what I tell thee."
His voice had gradually grown sterner; and he gently withdrew his hand
from her clasp, and rose as a man in a hurry, and pressed with affairs:
"Come, Bram, there is need now of some haste. The 'Sea Hound' has her
cargo, and should sail at the noon-tide; and, as for the 'Crowned
Bears,' thou knowest there is much to be said and done. I hear she left
most of her cargo at Perth Amboy. Well, well, I have told Jerome Brakel
what I think of that. It is his own affair."
Thus talking, he left the room; and Lysbet instantly began to order the
wants of the house with the same air of settled preoccupation. "Joanna,"
she said, "the linen web in the loom, go and see how it is getting on;
and the fine napkins must be sent to the lawn for the bleaching, and
to-day the chambers must be aired and swept. The best parlour Katherine
will attend to."
Katherine still sat at the table; her eyes were cast down, and she was
arranging--without a consciousness of doing so--her bread-crumbs upon
her Delft plate. The directions roused her from her revery, and she
comprehended in a moment how decisive her father's orders were intended
to be. Yet in this matter she was so deeply interested that she
instinctively made an appeal against them.
"Mother, my mother, shall I not go once more to see Madam Gordon? So
kind she has been to me! She will say I am ungrateful, that I am rude,
and know not good manners. And I left there the cushion I am making, and
the worsteds. I may go at once, and bring them home? Yes, mother, I may
go at once. A young girl does not like to be thought ungrateful and
rude."
"More than that, Katherine; a young girl should not like to disobey a
good father. You make me feel astonished and sorry. Here is the key of
the best parlour; go now, and wash carefully the fine china-ware. As to
the rose-leaves in the big jars, you must not let a drop of water touch
them."