eldom--to be
obeyed by him. All must feel the same queer power in the woman, be we
dogs or men.

"Well, I'm glad you got your country back from Napoleon," said Miss
Rivers. "Nobody, except the Dutch, could have made it so cozy, so
radiantly clean and comfortable. _Dear_ little Holland!"

I laughed. "Dear little Holland! Yes, that's the way you all pet and
patronize our Hollow Land, and chuck it under the chin, so to speak. You
think of it as a nice little toy country, to come and play with, and
laugh at for its quaintness. And why shouldn't you? But it strikes us
Netherlanders as funny, that point of view of yours, if we have a sense
of humor--and we have, sometimes! You see, we've a good memory for our
past. We know what we're built upon.

"Think of the making of Holland, though I grant you it's difficult, when
you look at this peaceful landscape; but try to call up something as
different as darkness is to light. Forget the river, and the houses, and
the pretty branching canals, and see nothing but marshes, wild and
terrible, with sluggish rivers crawling through mud-banks to the sea,
beaten back by fierce tides, to overflow into oozy meers and stagnant
pools. Think of raging winds, never still, the howling of seas, and the
driving of pitiless rains. No other views but those, and no definite
forms rising out of the water save great forest trees, growing so
densely that no daylight shines through the black roof of branches.
Imagine the life of our forefathers, who fled here from an existence so
much more dreadful that they clung to the mud-banks and fought for them,
a never-ending battle with the sea. That was the beginning of the
Netherlands, as it was of Venice, and the fugitives built as the
Venetians built, on piles, with wattles. If you've seen Venice, you'll
often be reminded of it here. And what rest have we had since those
beginnings? If not fighting the sea, we had to fight Spain and England,
and even now our battles aren't over. They never will be, while we keep
our heads above water. Every hour of every day and night some one is
fighting to save the Netherlands from the fate of Atlantis. While her
men fight she's safe; but if they rested, this 'peaceful, comfortable
little country' would be blotted out under the waters, as so many
provinces vanished under the Zuider Zee in the thirteenth century, and
others, at other times, have been swept away."

"Do you think our motor-boat could ride on the flood, and