“Welcome, gentlemen!  My greeting comes late, but I would have gladly offered it earlier.”

“I can bear witness to that,” cried Doctor Bontius, rising and shaking hands with Maria more cordially than ever before.  Then he motioned towards Peter, and exclaimed to the assembled guests:  “Will you excuse the burgomaster for a moment?”

As soon as he stood apart with the husband and wife at the door, he began: 

“You have invited a new visitor to the house, Frau Van der Werff; I won’t drink another drop of Malmsey, if I’m mistaken.”

“How do you know?” asked Maria gaily.  “I see it in your face.”

“And the young lady shall be cordially welcome to me,” added Peter.

“Then you know?” asked Maria.

The doctor did not conceal his conjecture from me.”

“Why yes, the sick girl will be glad to come to us, and to-morrow—­”

“No, I’ll send for her to-day,” interrupted Peter.  “To-day?” But dear me!  It’s so late; perhaps she is asleep, the gentlemen are here, and our spare bed—­” exclaimed Maria, glancing disapprovingly and irresolutely from the physician to her husband.

“Calm yourself; child,” replied Peter.  “The doctor has ordered a covered litter from St. Catharine’s hospital, Jan and one of the city-guard will carry her, and Barbara has nothing more to do in the kitchen and is now preparing her own chamber for her.”

“And,” chimed in the physician, “perhaps the sick girl may find sleep here.  Besides, it will he far more agreeable to her pride to be carried through the streets unseen, under cover of the darkness.”

“Yes, yes,” said Maria sadly, “that may be so; but I had been thinking—­ People ought not to do anything too hastily.”

“Will you be glad to receive the young lady as a guest?” asked Peter.

“Why, certainly.”

“Then we won’t do things by halves, but show her all the kindness in our power.  There is Barbara beckoning; the litter has come, Doctor.  Guide the nocturnal procession in God’s name, but don’t keep us waiting too long.”

The burgomaster returned to his seat, and Bontius left the room.

Maria followed him.  In the entry, he laid his hand on her arm and asked: 

“Will you know next time, what I expect from you?”

“No,” replied the burgomaster’s wife, in a tone which sounded gay, though it revealed the disappointment she felt; “no—­but you have taught me that 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.