"I thank you," Ned replied, "but I would rather go alone. If I am detected harm would only come to myself, but if you were with me you would assuredly all be involved in my misfortune. I would far rather go alone. I do not feel that there is any danger of my being suspected; and if I am alone I can bandy jokes with the soldiers if they speak to me. There is no fear that either Spanish or Germans will notice that I speak Dutch rather than Flemish. What is the price at which I ought to offer my eggs?" Magdalene told him the price she generally paid to the market women. "Of course you must ask a little more than that, and let people beat you down to that figure." "Now I am off, then," he said, taking up the basket. "May God keep you in His hands!" the countess said solemnly. "It is not only your own life that is at stake, but the interests of our country." "Turn round and let me take a last look at you," Magdalene said, "and be sure that everything is right. Yes, you will pass; but remember what I told you about your walk." Ned walked briskly along until he came within sight of two soldiers standing at a point where the street branched. He now walked more slowly, stopping here and there and offering his eggs to women standing at their doors or going in and out. As he thought it better to effect a sale he asked rather lower prices than those Magdalene had given him, and disposed of three or four dozen before he reached the soldiers. They made no remark as he passed. He felt more confident now, and began to enter into the spirit of his part; and when one of a group of soldiers in front of a wine shop made some laughing remark to him he answered him pertly, and turned the laugh of the man's comrades against him. On nearing the centre of the town he began his task of delivering the letters, choosing first those who resided in comparatively quiet streets, so as to get rid of as many of them as possible before he entered the more crowded thoroughfares, where his risk of detection would be greater. The only persons he was really afraid of meeting were Von Aert and his clerk. The first might not detect him, but he felt sure that if the eyes of the latter fell upon him he would recognize him. With the various burghers he had little trouble. If they were in their shops he walked boldly in, and said to them, "I am the young woman from the village of Beerholt, whom you were expecting to see;" and in each case the burgher said at once, "It is my wife who has business with you," and led the way into the interior of the house. Ned's next question: "How is the wind blowing in Holland?" was answered by his being taken into a quiet room. The letter was then produced, and in each case an answer more or less satisfactory was given.