new
all the good things I've been buying at market. Have you forgotten
your cousins are coming to-day, all the way from over the sea? I'm
sure they'll be hungry enough."

"What you got?" asked Amelia (usually called Minchen).

"Fine Beemster cheese, sweet butter, fresh salad, and plenty of fruit.
And there are lots of good things at the bottom of the basket. I'll
leave you to find out what they are." And Charlotte made the boat
fast, and carried the heavy basket into the house.

It was not necessary for Charlotte to remind these little girls of
the cousins who lived in the city of New York, in the far-off land of
America. For the last month little else had been talked of in the Van
Schaick mansion besides the expected visit of the Chester family. Mrs.
Van Schaick and Mrs. Chester were sisters, and this was but the second
visit the latter had paid her old Holland home since her marriage. On
the first visit her children were not with her; but now Mr. Chester
was coming, and the two boys. Many were the wild speculations the
girls indulged in with regard to Americans,--what they would look
like, and what they would say and do.

Great, then, was their surprise, when the travelers arrived, to find
that their aunt Chester was very like their mother in appearance and
dress. Mr. Chester did not in the least resemble their father, but he
was not unlike many other men they had seen, and he did not dress in
wild-beast skins. As for the boys, Greta poured her tale of woe into
the ears of the sympathizing Charlotte. "They are just like English
boys!" she said, contemptuously. Greta had often seen English boys,
and there was nothing uncommon about them.

This was soon forgotten, however, when Greta discovered what pleasant
companions the boys were, and that they could put the Dutch words
together almost as correctly as Greta herself. Will Chester, who had
reached the dignified age of thirteen, had felt much troubled at the
thought that he would have "only girls" to play with at Zaandam,
especially as Greta was a year younger than himself. But when the two
girls, instead of bringing forward their dolls and tea-sets with
which to entertain their visitors, produced from their treasures
two good-sized toy canal-boats, fully equipped with everything a
canal-boat needed, he admitted to himself that girls who liked to sail
boats might be good for something.

Secretly, however, he thought that a canal-boat was a poor kind of
vessel to