jumping, flying, and hopping. There were lions,
swans, dragons, giraffes, parrots, eagles, cats, together in a happy
family of foliage; and when I told the Chaperon that the people of
Aalsmeer were garden-artists, as well as market-gardeners, she insisted
on stopping. Nothing would satisfy her but the Mariner must cross the
bridge, knock at the door of a little red house, and buy a box-tree baby
elephant, which she thought would be enchanting in a pot, as a kind of
figurehead on board "Waterspin."

Nor was I allowed to remain idle. When I had helped him bargain for the
leafy beast, I had to go down on my knees, roll up my sleeves, and claw
water-lilies out from the canal, which they fringed in luscious
clusters. This I did while men and maids in painted boats heaped with
rubies piled on emeralds (which were strawberries in beds of their own
leaves) laughed at me. Boat peddlers came and went, too, with stores of
shining tin, or blue, brown, and green pottery that glittered in the
afternoon sun. Some of them helped me, some jeered in Dutch at "these
foreigners with their childish ways."

In the end I was luckier than Starr, for he had to march under the
weight of his green elephant, half hidden behind it, as behind a screen,
while my lilies were so popular with the ladies that not even as a favor
would I have been allowed to carry one. All three, if left to
themselves, would have lingered for hours, choosing which house they
would live in, or watching families of ducks, or counting strewn flowers
floating down the blue water as stars float down the sky.

"I believe, Nephew, that I must ask you to buy me a house in Aalsmeer to
come and play dolls in," announced Aunt Fay. "Don't you suppose,
Jonkheer, that one could be got cheap?--not that _that_ need be a
consideration to dear Ronny!"

"I'll find out--later," I assured her, answering a despairing look of
Starr's from between the green tusks of his elephant.

"Oh, please, _now_," urged the gentle voice which every one but Tibe
obeys; "because, you know, I'm not strong, and when I set my heart on a
thing, and suffer disappointment, it makes me ill. If I were ill I
should have to go home, and those darling girls couldn't finish the
trip."

"You haven't had time to set your heart upon a house here," said Starr.
"You only thought of it a minute ago."

"We Scotch have so _much_ heart, dearest, that it goes out to
things--and people--in less than a minute. I'm a victim to