signs of molesting
the sledge.

Diogenes caught only a few brief glimpses of the jongejuffrouw during
the day; once at Zegwaard where there was a halt for dinner, then at
Zevenhuisen and Hillegersberg where horses and men were ready for a
rest. But she never seemed to see him, passing quickly in and out of
the small huts or cottages to which Pythagoras or Socrates escorted her
from a respectful distance. She never spoke to either of these worthies
on those occasions, nor did she question any orders for halting or
re-starting.

To those who attended on her, however, at the halting places, to the
cottagers or millers who brought her milk and bread to eat she was
graciousness itself, and whenever it was time to go, Diogenes before
leaving had invariably to listen to the loud praises of the beautiful
jongejuffrouw with the sweet, sad face.

As to his own existence, she seemed hardly aware of it; at Zevenhuisen,
when she went back to the sledge, Diogenes was not very far from where
she passed. Moreover he was quite sure that she had seen him, for her
head was turned straight in the direction where he stood, hat in hand,
waiting to see her comfortably settled in the sledge, before remounting.
It was in the early part of the afternoon and once more bitterly
cold--no doubt she felt the return of the frost, for she seemed to give
a little shiver and pulled the hood more closely over her face.

The roads had been very heavy earlier in the day with their carpet of
partially melted snow, but now this surface had frozen once more and the
track was slippery like glass under the sledge, but terribly trying for
the horses.

Progress was necessarily slow and wearisome both to man and beast, and
the shades of evening were beginning to gather in very fast when at last
the wooden spire of Rotterdam's Groote Kerk emerged out of the frozen
mist.

Diogenes--as he had done before at Leyden and at Zegwaard--pushed on
ahead now; he wanted to reach the house of Ben Isaje in advance of the
jongejuffrouw and prepare the Hebraic gentleman against her coming. The
little town with its intricate network of narrow streets intersected by
canals did not seem imposing to the eye. Diogenes marvelled with what
thoughts the jongejuffrouw would survey it--wondering no doubt if it
would prove the end of her journey or merely a halt on the way to some
other place more distant still from her home.

Ben Isaje appeared to be a person of some consequence in