d vanished
when her hand stole into his hand, when she slightly lifted her face,
and whispered, "Richard."

They were practically alone upon the misty river; and Richard answered
the tender call with sweet, impassioned kisses; with low, lover-like,
encouraging words; with a silence that thrilled with such soft beat and
subsidence of the spirit's wing, as--

"When it feels, in cloud-girt wayfaring,
The breath of kindred plumes against its feet."

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X.

"_Good people, how they wrangle!
The manners that they never mend,
The characters they mangle!
They eat and drink, and scheme and plod,
And go to church on Sunday;
And many are afraid of God,
And some of Mrs. Grundy_."

During that same hour Joris was in the town council. There had been a
stormy and prolonged session on the Quartering Act. "To little purpose
have we compelled the revocation of the Stamp Act," he cried, "if the
Quartering Act upon us is to be forced. We want not English soldiers
here. In our homes why should we quarter them?"

All the way home he was asking himself the question; and, when he found
Dominie Van Linden talking to Lysbet, he gladly discussed it over again
with him. Lysbet sat beside them, knitting and listening. Until after
nine o'clock Joris did not notice the absence of his daughter. "She
went to Joanna's," said Lysbet calmly. No fear had yet entered her
heart. Perhaps she had a vague suspicion that Katherine might also go to
Mrs. Gordon's, and she was inclined to avoid any notice of the lateness
of the hour. If it were even ten o'clock when she returned, Lysbet
intended to make no remarks. But ten o'clock came, and the dominie went,
and Joris suddenly became anxious about Katherine.

His first anger fell upon Bram. "He ought to have been at home. Then he
could have gone for his sister. He is not attentive enough to Katherine;
and very fond is he of hanging about Miriam Cohen's doorstep."

"What say you, Joris, about Miriam Cohen?"

"I spoke in my temper."

He would not explain his words, and Lysbet would not worry him about
Katherine. "To Joanna's she went, and Batavius is in Boston. Very well,
then, she has stayed with her sister."

Still, in her own heart there was a certain uneasiness. Katherine had
never rem