can say; but I can't, Mother Kirstine. You are her aunt, and want of
course to--"

"I'm afraid it is your misfortune, Salve," she broke in severely, "not
to have it in your power to believe thoroughly in any one creature upon
this earth; you'll be always doubting, always listening to folks' talk.
With the thoughts you have now in your mind, you have at any rate no
business any longer inside my door. But there is one thing I'll ask of
you," she said, with a look of mildly impressive earnestness in her
strong, clever face. "I know Elizabeth's nature well, and don't you
attempt to approach her or try to win her as long as you have a trace of
those doubts about her in your heart--it would only bring unhappiness to
both of you."

He looked dejected; and as he said good-bye to her, offered to take her
hand. But she would not give it to him, and merely added instead--

"Remember that it is an old woman who has seen a good deal in the world
who tells you this."

He went away then; and while he was being rowed across to Sandvigen he
changed his mind again, and determined that his plan of plying to
Holland should be carried out.

CHAPTER XIX.

Skipper Garvloit, into whose family Elizabeth had come, occupied one of
the many-storeyed houses, with green window-shutters, narrow
entrance-doors, and polished brass knockers, after the usual Dutch
fashion, in the lively street leading down to the dock in Amsterdam,
with the canal on the other side, with its various bridges, and vessels
and barges of all kinds unlading, running up from it into the heart of
the town.

Madam Garvloit had four young children, and was not very strong, so that
Elizabeth's robust, healthy nature had been a perfect godsend to her in
the house, and she was content to overlook her occasional shortcomings
of manner or temper in consideration of the assistance which she
rendered in every department of the housekeeping.

Elizabeth had always had a pretty strong will of her own; and here,
where she virtually had the control of everything, her tendency to
self-assertion had been considerably developed. The force and decision
with which she gave her opinion about everything seemed to Madam
Garvloit sometimes (although she said nothing) rather like a reversing
of their relative positions; and on days when she was in a captious
humour--and those were her days of most feverish activity--she would
even go so far as to set aside her mistress's orders altoge