into the garden for the sole
purpose, we told each other, of having coffee; and when we saw Mr. Starr
sitting with an empty cup and a cigarette, we both exclaimed, "Oh, are
you here?" as if we were surprised; so I suppose we were.

[Illustration: _We both exclaimed, "Oh, are you here?"_]

He had caught a glimpse of Cousin Robert, and said what a
splendid-looking fellow he was--a regular Viking; but when we agreed, he
appeared depressed. "Oh, my prophetic soul!" he murmured. "The cousin
will want his mother to go with you, and my poor aunt will be nowhere."

"His mother is too large for the boat," I assured him confidently. Mr.
Starr brightened at this, but clouded again when he heard that Phil and
I were to stop the night with my cousins.

"They will tear you away from me--I mean, from my aunt," he said.

I shook my head. "No. It's difficult to resist the Dutch, I find, when
they want you to do anything; but when they want you _not_ to do
anything--why, that is too much. Your pride comes to the rescue, and you
fight for your life. We'll _promise_, if you like; for your aunt's sake.
Won't we, Phil?"

"Yes; for your aunt's sake," she echoed.

"We can depend upon you, then--my aunt and I?"

"Upon us and 'Lorelei.'"

"You're angels. My aunt will bless you. And now, would you care to look
at the barge I've got the refusal of? If you're going to tow her, you
ought to know what she's like. I don't think she'll put 'Lorelei' to
shame, though, for she's good of her kind; belongs to a Dutch artist
who's in the habit of living aboard, but he has a commission for work in
France, this summer, and wants to let her. She's lying near by."

Who would have thought, when we arrived a few hours before, strangers in
Rotterdam, that we would be sauntering about the town with an American
young man, calmly making plans for a cruise in his society? I'm sure
that if a palmist had contrived to capture Phil's virtuous little hand,
and foretold any such events, my stepsister would have considered them
as impossible as monstrous. Nevertheless, she now accepted the
arrangements Fate made for her, as quietly as the air she breathed; for
was not the figure of our future chaperon already hovering in the
background, title and old Scotch blood and all, sanctifying the whole
proceeding?

Phil was so enchanted with the barge (which turned out to be a sort of
glorified Dutch sea-going house-boat) that she was fired with sudden
enthusiasm for ou