you are a man who understands how to spoil one's best pleasures."

"I will procure you others," replied the doctor laughing and descended
the stairs. He was Peter's oldest friend, and had made many objections
to the burgomaster's marriage with a girl so many years his junior, in
these evil times, but to-day he showed himself satisfied with Van der
Werff's choice.

Maria returned to the guests, filled and offered glasses of wine to the
gentlemen, and then went to her sister-in-law's room, to help her prepare
everything for the sick girl as well as possible. She did not do so
unwillingly, but it seemed as if she would have gone to the work with
far greater pleasure early the next morning.

Barbara's spacious chamber looked out upon the court-yard. No sound
could be heard there of the conversation going on between the gentlemen
in the dining-room, yet it was by no means quiet among these men who,
though animated by the same purpose, differed widely about the ways and
means of bringing it to a successful issue.

There they sat, the brave sons of a little nation, the stately leaders of
a small community, poor in numbers and means of defence, which had
undertaken to bid defiance to the mightiest power and finest armies of
its age. They knew that the storm-clouds, which had been threatening for
weeks on the horizon, would rise faster and faster, mass together, and
burst in a furious tempest over Leyden, for Herr Van der Werff had
summoned them to his house because a letter addressed to himself and
Commissioner Van Bronkhorst by the Prince, contained tidings, that the
Governor of King Philip of Spain had ordered Senor del Campo Valdez to
besiege Leyden a second time and reduce it to subjection. They were