At that date there was living in Leyden a young man of four or five and twenty, named Dirk van Goorl, a distant cousin of her own.  Dirk was a native of the little town of Alkmaar, and the second son of one of its leading citizens, a brass founder by trade.  As in the natural course of events the Alkmaar business would descend to his elder brother, their father appointed him to a Leyden firm, in which, after eight or nine years of hard work, he had become a junior partner.  While he was still living, Lysbeth’s father had taken a liking to the lad, with the result that he grew intimate at the house which, from the first, was open to him as a kinsman.  After the death of Carolus van Hout, Dirk had continued to visit there, especially on Sundays, when he was duly and ceremoniously received by Lysbeth’s aunt, a childless widow named Clara van Ziel, who acted as her guardian.  Thus, by degrees, favoured with such ample opportunity, a strong affection had sprung up between these two young people, although as yet they were not affianced, nor indeed had either of them said a word of open love to the other.

This abstinence may seem strange, but some explanation of their self-restraint was to be found in Dirk’s character.  In mind he was patient, very deliberate in forming his purposes, and very sure in carrying them out.  He felt impulses like other men, but he did not give way to them.  For two years or more he had loved Lysbeth, but being somewhat slow at reading the ways of women he was not quite certain that she loved him, and above everything on earth he dreaded a rebuff.  Moreover he knew her to be an heiress, and as his own means were still humble, and his expectations from his father small, he did not feel justified in asking her in marriage until his position was more assured.  Had the Captain Carolus still been living the case would have been different, for then he could have gone to him.  But he was dead, and Dirk’s fine and sensitive nature recoiled from the thought that it might be said of him that he had taken advantage of the inexperience of a kinswoman in order to win her fortune.  Also deep down in his mind he had a sincerer and quite secret reason for reticence, whereof more in its proper place.

Thus matters stood between these two.  To-day, however, though only with diffidence and after some encouragement from the lady, he had asked leave to be his cousin’s cavalier at the ice fete, and when she consented, readily enough, appointed the moat as their place of meeting.  This was somewhat less than Lysbeth expected, for she wished his escort through the town.  But, when she hinted as much, Dirk explained that he would not be able to leave the works before three o’clock, as the metal for a large bell had been run into the casting, and he must watch it while it cooled.

So, followed only by her maid, Greta, Lysbeth glided lightly as a bird down the ice path on to the moat, and across it, through the narrow cut, to the frozen mere beyond, where the sports were to be held and the races run.  There the scene was very beautiful.