iden. Next came
Naarden--that tragic Naarden whose capture and sack by the Spaniards
encouraged Alva to attack Haarlem; and then, without one of the party
having dreamed of danger, we swung out on the road to Laren, a road set
in pineland and heather, which would have reminded the real Lady
MacNairne of her Scottish home. There was actually something like a hill
here and there, which the strangers were astonished to find in Holland,
and would hardly believe when I said that, on reaching Gelderland, I
would be able to show them a Dutch mountain two hundred feet high, among
a colony of smaller eminences to which half the Netherlands rush in
summer.

Meanwhile they were satisfied with what they saw; and it is a pretty
enough road, this way between Amsterdam and Laren. At first we had had
the canal, with its sleepy barges, peopled with large families, and
towed by children harnessed in tandem at the end of long ropes; its
little shady, red-and-green wayside houses, with "Melk Salon" printed
attractively over their doors. We had had avenues of trees, knotted here
and there into groves; we had passed pretty farmhouses with bright
milk-cans and pans hanging on the red walls, like placks in a
drawing-room; we had seen gardens flooded with roses, and long stretches
of water carpeted with lilies white and yellow; then we had come to pine
forests and heather, and always we had had the good klinker which,
though not as velvety for motoring as asphalt, is free from dust even in
dry weather. We had run almost continuously on our fourth speed; and
even in Laren I came down to the second only long enough to let them all
see the beauty of the Mauve country.

Starr knows Anton Mauve's pictures, and his history; but the ladies had
seen only a few delicious landscapes in the Ryks Museum. Still, they
liked to hear that at Laren Corot's great disciple had found
inspiration. Nowhere in the Netherlands are there such beautiful barns,
each one of which is a background for a Nativity picture; and it was
Laren peasants, Laren cows, and the sunlit and cloud-shadowed meadows of
Laren which kept Mauve's brush busy for years.

After the charm of Haarlem's suburbs, Hilversum, where merchants of
Amsterdam play at being in the country, was disappointing; but having
lunched in open air, and spun on toward Amersfoort, we ran into a
district which holds some delightful houses, set among plane trees,
varied with flowering acacias and plantations of oak.