In vain
Wolfert's wife remonstrated; in vain his darling daughter wept over
the destruction of some favorite marigold. "Thou shalt have gold
of another-guess[1] sort," he would cry, chucking her under the
chin; "thou shalt have a string of crooked ducats for thy wedding
necklace, my child." His family began really to fear that the poor
man's wits were diseased. He muttered in his sleep at night about
mines of wealth, about pearls and diamonds, and bars of gold. In
the daytime he was moody and abstracted, and walked about as if in
a trance. Dame Webber held frequent councils with all the old
women of the neighborhood; scarce an hour in the day but a knot of
them might be seen wagging their white caps together round her
door, while the poor woman made some piteous recital. The
daughter, too, was fain to seek for more frequent consolation from
the stolen interviews of her favored swain, Dirk Waldron. The
delectable little Dutch songs with which she used to dulcify the
house grew less and less frequent, and she would forget her sewing,
and look wistfully in her father's face as he sat pondering by the
fireside.
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