Long before supper was over, Madam Van Heemskirk had discovered that this night Elder Semple had a special reason for his call. His talk of Mennon and the Anabaptists and the objectionable Lutherans, she perceived, was all surface talk; and when the meal was finished, and the girls gone to their room, she was not astonished to hear him say, "Joris, let us light another pipe. I hae something to speak anent. Sit still, gudewife, we shall want your word on the matter." "On what matter, Elder?" "Anent a marriage between my son Neil and your daughter Katherine." The words fell with a sharp distinctness, not unkindly, but as if they were more than common words. They were followed by a marked silence, a silence which in no way disturbed Semple. He knew his friends well, and therefore he expected it. He puffed his pipe slowly, and glanced at Joris and Lysbet Van Heemskirk. The father's face had not moved a muscle; the mother's was like a handsome closed book. She went on with her knitting, and only showed that she had heard the proposal by a small pretence of finding it necessary to count the stitches in the heel she was turning. Still, there had been some faint, evanescent flicker on her face, some droop or lift of the eyelids, which Joris understood; for, after a glance at her, he said slowly, "For Katherine the marriage would be good, and Lysbet and I would like it. However, we will think a little about it; there is time, and to spare. One should not run on a new road. The first step is what I like to be sure of; as you know, Elder, to the second step it often binds you.--Say what you think, Lysbet." "Neil is to my mind, when the time comes. But yet the child knows not perfectly her Heidelberg. And there is more: she must learn to help her mother about the house before she can manage a house of her own. So in time, I say, it would be a good thing. We have been long good friends." [Illustration: Knitting] "We hae been friends for four generations, and we may safely tie the knot tighter now. There are wise folk that say the Dutch and the Lowland Scotch are of the same stock, and a vera gude stock it is,--the women o' baith being fair as lilies and thrifty as bees, and the men just a wonder o' every thing wise and weel-spoken o'. For-bye, baith o' us--Scotch and Dutch--are strict Protestors. The Lady o' Rome never threw dust in our een, and neither o' us would put our noses to the ground for either powers spiritual or powers temporal. When I think o' our John Knox"-- "First came Erasmus, Elder." "Surely. Well, well, it was about wedding and housekeeping I came to speak, and we'll hae it oot. The land between this place and my place, on the river-side, is your land, Joris. Give it to Katherine, and I will build the young things a house; and the furnishing and plenishing we'll share between us." "There is more to a wedding than house and land, Elder."