Chapter 9 - Page 2

"My husband" was perpetually on her tongue. She looked upon
her position as a wife and housekeeper as unique. Other woman might
have, during the past six thousand years, held these positions in an
indifferent kind of way; but only she had ever comprehended and properly
fulfilled the duties they involved. Madam Van Heemskirk smiled a little
when Joanna gave her advices about her house and her duties, when she
disapproved of her father's political attitude, when she looked injured
by Bram's imprudence.

"Not only is wisdom born with Joanna and Batavius, it will also die with
them; so they think," said Katharine indignantly, after one of Joanna's
periodical visitations.

A tear twinkled in madam's eyes; but she answered, "I shall not distress
myself overmuch. Always I have said, 'Joanna has a little soul. Only
what is for her own good can she love.'"

"It is Batavius; and a woman must love her husband, mother."

"That is the truth: first and best of all, she must love him, Katherine;
but not as the dog loves and fawns on his master, or the squaw bends
down to her brave. A good woman gives not up her own principles and
thoughts and ways. A good woman will remember the love of her father and
mother and brother and sister, her old home, her old friends; and
contempt she will not feel and show for the things of the past, which
often, for her, were far better than she was worthy of."

"There is one I love, mother, love with all my soul. For him I would
die. But for thee also I would die. Love thee, mother? I love thee and
my father better because I love him. My mother, fret thee not, nor think
that ever Joanna can really forget thee. If a daughter could forget her
good father and her good mother, then with the women who sit weeping in
the outer darkness, God would justly give her her portion. Such a
daughter could not be."

Lysbet sadly shook her head. "When I was a little girl, Katherine, I
read in a book about the old Romans, how a wicked daughter over the
bleeding corpse of her father drove her chariot. She wanted his crown
for her own husband; and over the warm, quivering body of her father she
drove. When I read that story, Katherine, my eyes I covered with my
hands. I thought such a wicked woman in the world could not be. Alas,
_mijn kind!_ often since then I have seen daughters over the bleeding
hearts of their mothers and fathers drive; and frown and scold and be
much injured and offended if once, in their pain and sorrow, they cry
out."

"But this of me remember, mother: if I am not near thee, I shall be
loving thee, thinking of thee; telling my husband, and perhaps my little
children about thee,--how