heresy cut from one of the Sieur de la Tour's good Huguenot doublets."

The girlish faces, bent opposite, grew placid with domestic interest.
Marie's cheeks ripened by the fire, but the whiter Hollandaise warmed
only through the lips. This hall's glow made more endurable the image of
Jonas Bronck's hand. "When was it cut off, Antonia?" murmured Marie,
stopping to thread a needle.

The perceptible blight again fell over Antonia's face as she replied,--

"After he had been one day dead."

"Then he did not grimly lop it off himself?"

"Oh, no," whispered Antonia with deep sighing. "Mynheer the doctor did
that, on his oath to my husband. He was the most learned cunning man in
medicine that ever came to our colony. He kept the hand a month in his
furnace before it was ready to send to me."

"Did Monsieur Bronck, before he died, tell you his intention to do
this?" pressed Marie, feeling less interest in the Dutch embalmer's
method than in the sinuous motive of a man who could leave such a
bequest.

"Yes, madame."

"I do marvel at such an act!" murmured the lady of St. John, challenging
Jonas Bronck's loyal widow to take up his instant defense.

"Madame, he was obliged to do it by a dream he had."