Photo by limil i>. M 



IN THE MARKET-PEACE : TER GOES 



hung thick with fruit. Like JacqueHne's 

 story, JacqueHne's tree seems immortal 

 and Goes does its best to keep both green. 

 The poor old trunk, with its clefts and 

 crannies, is carefully covered to protect 

 it from weather. It has a patched-up 

 look, as of a man with limbs in splints 

 and on crutches ; but feeble as it is. Goes 

 rejoices in its possession, for is it not the 

 tree which Jacqueline planted, and be- 

 neath whose shade she sat watching and 

 waiting the coming of the knight who 

 should set her free. 



Just how both tales can be credited is 

 a little difficult. Jacqueline must have 

 planted the tree in extreme infancy if 

 she sat beneath its shade within 30 years ; 

 but then mulberry-trees grow rapidly. 



Zeeland soil is fertile, and why spoil a 

 good story with too many questions? 



The knight came and she married him ; 

 but the fairy tale closes there, for the 

 proper ending, "and they lived happily 

 ever after," is wanting. "A bad promise 

 is better broken than kept," the fair lady 

 thought, when she married without ask- 

 ing consent of that cousin who had ex- 

 torted the pledge to do so and to whom, 

 as a consequence, she forfeited her lands ; 

 but the broken promise and the new hus- 

 band did not bring the power or peace 

 she craved, and freedom from sad mem- 

 ories was not hers for the asking. Poor 

 disappointed Jacqueline found it only far 

 from her dear Goes, in her tomb at The 

 Hague. 



39 



