"It would have been well to
have ascertained whether she we seek has not taken some less exceptionable
course than this, before we hastily believe that your niece would so
easily become the wife of a stranger."
"Has Mr. Van Staats any hidden meaning in his words, that he speaks
ambiguously?" demanded Ludlow.
"A man, conscious of his good intentions, has little occasion to speak
equivocally. I believe, with this reputed smuggler, that la belle Barberie
would be more likely to fly with one she has long known, and whom I fear
she has but too well esteemed, than with an utter stranger, over whose
life there is cast a shade of so dark mystery."
"If the impression that the lady could yield her esteem with too little
discretion, be any excuse for suspicions, then may I advise a search in
the manor of Kinderhook!"
"Consent and joy! The girl need not have stolen to church to become the
bride of Oloff Van Staats!" interrupted the Alderman. "She should have had
my benediction on the match, and a fat gift to give it unction."
"These suspicions are but natural, between men bent on the same object,"
resumed the free-trader. "The officer of the Queen thinks a glance of the
eye, from a wilful fair, means admiration of broad lands and rich meadows;
and the lord of the manor distrusts the romance of warlike service, and
the power of an imagination which roams the sea. Still may I ask, what is
there here, to tempt a proud and courted beauty to forget station, sex,
and friends?"
"Caprice and vanity! There is no answering for a woman's mind! Here we
bring articles, at great risk and heavy charges, from the farther Indies,
to please their fancies, and they change their modes easier than the
beaver casts his coat.
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