y youth with shaking cheeks rode past bumpetty, bumpetty,
bump!

On their return, the boys pronounced the great porcelain stove in the
family sitting room a decidedly useful piece of furniture, for they
could gather around it and get warm without burning their noses or
bringing on chilblains. It was so very large that, though hot elsewhere,
it seemed to send out warmth by the houseful. Its pure white sides
and polished brass rings made it a pretty object to look upon,
notwithstanding the fact that our ungrateful Ben, while growing
thoroughly warm and comfortable beside it, concocted a satirical
sentence for his next letter, to the effect that a stove in Holland
must, of course, resemble a great tower of snow or it wouldn't be in
keeping with the oddity of the country.

To describe all the boys saw and did on that day and the next would
render this little book a formidable volume indeed. They visited the
brass cannon foundry, saw the liquid fire poured into molds, and watched
the smiths, who, half naked, stood in the shadow, like demons playing
with flame. They admired the grand public buildings and massive private
houses, the elegant streets, and noble Bosch--pride of all beauty-loving
Hollanders. The palace with its brilliant mosaic floors, its frescoed
ceilings, and gorgeous ornaments, filled Ben with delight; he was
surprised that some of the churches were so very plain--elaborate
sometimes in external architecture but bare and bleak within with their
blank, whitewashed walls.

If there were no printed record, the churches of Holland would almost
tell her story. I will not enter into the subject here, except to say
that Ben--who had read of her struggles and wrongs and of the terrible
retribution she had from time to time dealt forth--could scarcely tread
a Holland town without mentally leaping horror-stricken over the bloody
stepping-stones of its history. He could not forget Philip of Spain nor
the Duke of Alva even while rejoicing in the prosperity that followed
the Liberation. He looked into the meekest of Dutch eyes for something
of the fire that once lit the haggard faces of those desperate,
lawless men who, wearing with pride the title of "Beggars," which their
oppressors had mockingly cast upon them, became the terror of land and
sea. In Haarlem he had wondered that the air did not still resound with
the cries of Alva's three thousand victims. In Leyden his heart had
swelled in sympathy as he thought of th