“Kate, the children grow so, this table will soon be too small.” “We cannot afford it, Eli,” replied Catherine, answering not his words, but his thought, after the manner of women. Their anxiety for the future took at times a less dismal but more mortifying turn. The free burghers had their pride as well as the nobles; and these two could not bear that any of their blood should go down in the burgh after their decease. So by prudence and self-denial they managed to clothe all the little bodies, and feed all the great mouths, and yet put by a small hoard to meet the future; and, as it grew and grew, they felt a pleasure the miser hoarding for himself knows not. One day the eldest boy but one, aged nineteen, came to his mother, and, with that outward composure which has so misled some persons as to the real nature of this people, begged her to intercede with his father to send him to Amsterdam, and place him with a merchant. “It is the way of life that likes me: merchants are wealthy; I am good at numbers; prithee, good mother, take my part in this, and I shall ever be, as I am now, your debtor.” Catherine threw up her hands with dismay and incredulity. “What! leave Tergou!” “What is one street to me more than another? If I can leave the folk of Tergou, I can surely leave the stones.” “What! quit your poor father now he is no longer young?” “Mother, if I can leave you, I can leave” “What! leave your poor brothers and sisters, that love you so dear?” “There are enough in the house without me.” “What mean you, Richart? Who is more thought of than you Stay, have I spoken sharp to you? Have I been unkind to you?” “Never that I know of; and if you had, you should never hear of it from me. Mother,” said Richart gravely, but the tear was in his eye, “it all lies in a word, and nothing can change my mind. There will be one mouth less for you to feed.' “There now, see what my tongue has done,” said Catherine, and the next moment she began to cry. For she saw her first young bird on the edge of the nest trying his wings to fly into the world. Richart had a calm, strong will, and she knew he never wasted a word. It ended as nature has willed all such discourse shall end: young Richart went to Amsterdam with a face so long and sad as it had never been seen before, and a heart like granite. That afternoon at supper there was one mouth less. Catherine looked at Richart's chair and wept bitterly. On this Elias shouted roughly and angrily to the children, “Sit wider, can't ye: sit wider!” and turned his head away over the back of his seat awhile, and was silent.