e
sweet-scented breeze rushed against my lashes.

"There's Schiedam," said Robert, indicating a town that stood up darkly
out of the green plain. "You know, they make the famous 'Geneva' there."

We had never heard of Geneva in liquid form, but it appeared that
"Geneva" or "Hollands" and gin were all the same thing; and Cousin
Robert seemed almost offended when I said it was nice, with hot water
and sugar, for a cold in the head.

I don't know whether the little Schie is really an idyllic stream, or
whether the glamor of that azure day was upon it for me, but our first
"waterway" seemed exquisite, as we spun along through country of wide
horizons and magic atmosphere.

There were pretty houses, with balconies screened with roses--cataracts
of roses, yellow, and pink, and white. We flew by lawns like the lawns
of England, and thick, dark patches of forest, where the sun rained
gold. There were meadows where a red flame of poppies leaped among the
wheat, and quenched their fire in the silver river of waving grain.
There were other meadows, green and sunny, where cows were being milked
into blue pails lined with scarlet; and there were bowery tea-gardens
divided into snug little arbors for two, where each swain could woo his
nymph unseen by the next-door swain and nymph, though all couples were
in sight from the river.

"Now we're coming to Delft," said Robert, long before I thought that we
could be near that ancient town. "If Rudolph Brederode, who lends me
this car, were here, he could tell much about the history," my cousin
went on, mentioning his friend for the second time, as if with pride.
"He is the sort of fellow who knows all the things to know, though he is
a great sportsman, too. I never took interest in history, but William
the Silent is our hero, so even I know of him and Delft. It was at Oude
Delft he was murdered."

"He was one of my heroes when I was a little girl," said I. "I can
recall my father telling splendid stories about him--as good as fairy
tales. The best was about the way he earned the nickname of William the
Silent."

I gazed with interest at the place where one of the greatest figures in
the history of the world had lived and died.

A shady, lovable old town it seemed. We drove into a pleasant street,
which looked so clear and green, from the mirror of its canal to the
Gothic arch of its close arbor of fragrant lime-trees, that it was like
a tunnel of illuminated beryl. The extraordin