houses, and lamps twinkled like stars along the water's edge. A fresh
cold dawn broke over the town. Then a little child began to cry in the
boat, and it seemed to those who heard it sweet as the bleating of a
lambkin.

"Riekje! Riekje!"

A distant voice called Riekje. It was Dolf who sprang over the bridge
and rushed into the room. Riekje, who was asleep, opened her eyes and
saw her loving lad kneeling beside her. Tobias threw his cap up in the
air, and Nelle, laughing, pinched the face of the new-born babe whom
Madame Puzzel swaddled on her knee. When the baby was well wrapped up,
Madame Puzzel placed it in Dolf's arms and he kissed it cautiously with
little smacks.

Riekje called Dolf to her side, took his head in her hand, and fell
asleep until morning. Dolf put his head beside her on the pillow, and
their breath and their hearts were as one during that sleep.




V.


Dolf went off into the town one morning.

Funeral bells were tolling, and their knell echoed through the air like
the hoarse cry of gulls and petrels above the shipwrecked.