“Nay, nay!” cried Kate eagerly. “Gerard might love a young woman: all young men do: I can't find what they see in them to love so; but if he did, he would let us know; he would not deceive us. You wicked man! No, dear mother, look not so! Gerard is too good to love a creature of earth. His love is for our Lady and the saints. Ah! I will show you the picture there: if his heart was earthly, could he paint the Queen of Heaven like that--look! look!” and she held the picture out triumphantly, and, more radiant and beautiful in this moment of enthusiasm than ever dead picture was or will be, over-powered the burgomaster with her eloquence and her feminine proof of Gerard's purity. His eyes and mouth opened, and remained open: in which state they kept turning, face and all as if on a pivot, from the picture to the women, and from the women to the picture. “Why, it is herself,” he gasped. “Isn't it!” cried Kate, and her hostility was softened. “You admire it? I forgive you for frightening us.” “Am I in a mad-house?” said Ghysbrecht Van Swieten thoroughly puzzled. “You show me a picture of the girl; and you say he painted it; and that is a proof he cannot love her. Why, they all paint their sweethearts, painters do.” “A picture of the girl?” exclaimed Kate, shocked. “Fie! this is no girl; this is our blessed Lady.” “No, no; it is Margaret Brandt.” “Oh blind! It is the Queen of Heaven.” “No; only of Sevenbergen village.” “Profane man! behold her crown!” “Silly child! look at her red hair! Would the Virgin be seen in red hair? She who had the pick of all the colours ten thousand years before the world began.” At this moment an anxious face was insinuated round the edge of the open door: it was their neighbour Peter Buyskens. “What is to do?” said he in a cautious whisper. “We can hear you all across the street. What on earth is to do?” “Oh, neighbour! What is to do? Why, here is the burgomaster blackening our Gerard.” “Stop!” cried Van Swieten. “Peter Buyskens is come in the nick of time. He knows father and daughter both. They cast their glamour on him.” “What! is she a witch too?” “Else the egg takes not after the bird. Why is her father called the magician? I tell you they bewitched this very Peter here; they cast unholy spells on him, and cured him of the colic: now, Peter, look and tell me who is that? and you be silent, women, for a moment, if you can; who is it, Peter?” “Well, to be sure!” said Peter, in reply; and his eye seemed fascinated by the picture. “Who is it?” repeated Ghysbrecht impetuously. Peter Buyskens smiled. “Why, you know as well as I do; but what have they put a crown on her for? I never saw her in a crown, for my part.” “Man alive! Can't you open your great jaws, and just speak a wench's name plain out to oblige three people?” “I'd do a great deal more to oblige one of you than that, burgomaster. If it isn't as natural as life!” “Curse the man! he won't, he won't--curse him!” “Why, what have I done now?”