a seedling-bed for first bloom this year."

* * * * *

Some of Uncle Jacob's seedling tulips were still "breeders," whose
future was yet unmarked[6] (he did not name them in hope, as he had
christened his nephew!) when Peter Paul went to sea.

[Footnote 6: The first bloom of seedling tulips is usually without
stripes or markings, and it is often years before they break into
stripes; till then they are called breeders, and are not named.]

He was quite unfitted for a farmer. He was always looking forward to
what he should do hereafter, or backward to the time when he believed
in fairy clocks. Now a farmer should live in the present, and time
himself by a steady-going watch with an enamelled face. Then little
things get done at the right time, which is everything in farming.

"Peter Paul puzzles too much," said his mother, "and that is your
fault, Jacob, for giving him a great name. But while he's thinking,
Daisy misses her mash and the hens lay away. He'll never make a
farmer. Indeed, for that matter, men never farm like women, and Leena
will take to it after me. She knows all my ways."

They were a kindly family, with no minds to make this short life
bitter for each other by thwarting, as so many well-meaning relatives
do; so the boy chose his own trade and went to sea.

He saw many places and many people; he saw a great deal of life, and
came face to face with death more than once, and under strange shapes.
He found answers to a lot of the old questions, and then new ones
came in their stead. Each year seemed to hold more than a life-time at
home would have held, and yet how quickly the years went by!

A great many had gone by when Peter Paul set foot once more upon Dutch
soil.

"And it only seems like yesterday that I went away!" said he.

Mother was dead. That was the one great change. Peter Paul's sisters
had inherited the farm. They managed it together, and they had divided
their mother's clothes, and also her rings and ear-rings, her gold
skull-cap and head-band and pins,--the heirlooms of a Dutch farmeress.

"It matters very little how we divide them, dear," Anna had said, "for
I shall never marry, and they will all go to your girl."

The elder sister was married and had two children. She had grown up
very pretty--a fair woman, with liquid misleading eyes. They looked as
if they were gazing into the far future, but they did not see an inch
beyond the farm. Anna was a ve