he plaintively suggested to his laughing she had carried off ample provision of niece that it was to him an overpowering finery to astonish the eyes of her comsensation to be in a city which contained patriots. nearly two millions of people, when he had never in his life dwelt among more than thirty thousand. The din, the glare, the bustle oppressed him; he wandered up and down the Champs Elysées and the boulevards, "alike unknowing and unknown," and would certainly have been run over had it not been for the vigilance of Lisette, who was only too rejoiced that her aunt deemed it comme-il-faut pour une jeune fille to go out with her uncle. She did not spare him the task of sightseeing, but under pretence of showing him Paris made him take her to see everything she had longed to see, but which her aunt's laziness had prevented her even beholding. She was so grateful to him for emancipating her from the dulness of her home, that she overwhelmed him with attention and caresses, and he watched her with grave amazement as a creature from another world, as, arrayed in the prettiest fashions of the day, she tripped along by his side, chatting volubly, and eagerly displaying the few Dutch sentences which she still remembered. Lisette's pretty little cajoling ways exercised quite a charm on the solemn old professor, and he allowed himself to be ordered about as she chose, much as a great mastiff submits to the caprices of a child. Madame St. Armaud made no opposition to Lisette's plans. Truth to say she was rather glad to get rid of the onerous burden of une demoiselle à marier. She was fat and lazy, and dreaded all trouble beyond that of feeding her macaws and lap-dogs. The idea of having to settle Lisette in life oppressed her so much, that she had hailed with relief the idea suggested by her confessor, that the convent would be Lisette's best destination. It was certainly the quickest solution of the difficulty, and a scheme sure to be agreeable to the "bon Dieu." Lisette's views were quite different. She was full of life, animation, and desire to know more of the wonderful world in which she was, so she by no means agreed in her aunt's view that such a plan would please the "bon Dieu." She was quite sure that it would not. She was delighted with her uncle, and sure that she would like her aunt and life at Leyden equally well. The professor's time was limited, and soon the hour of departure came. He stood amazed at the hecatomb of luggage which Lisette had collected, for The professor thought of Geertje's marching order when they went to spend the holidays at Scheveningue. It was without any sadness that Lisette took leave of her aunt and set off to see her fatherland. She found that after Antwerp her journey was to be continued in dismal drives in Snellwagens which belied their names, as they crawled along the road, with a motion which threatened to dislocate her bones, with an occasional variation of going down a canal-like river, bordered with pollard willows, while far and wide stretched the interminable polders, all sprinkled over with windmills which drove along the slug. gish waters in the ditches. Her heart failed a little at the everlasting monotony, one village resembling the other as two peas. In those days railways had not invaded Holland. It was all new, however, and she determined to make the best of it, enjoying her new sensation of liberty, and practising her small stock of Dutch on every occasion, much to the entertainment of her uncle. At last they reached Leyden. Lisette won good Geertje's heart at once by her unfeigned admiration of the beautiful old house, and captivated her as she had done her old uncle by all her bright, lively ways. It seemed as if a sunbeam had entered the calm and subdued household, and even as the sunlight evokes unseen beauties in some tranquil, homely scene, so Lisette's gay appreciation of all around her enhanced Geertje's own admiration of her dear possessions. For the first few days, the lively girl seemed never tired of running up and down the carved oak staircase, trying to decipher the quaint mythological tales recounted on the old tapestry in the drawingroom, which was quite a museum of china and Eastern curiosities. From top to bottom of the house, Lisette left nothing unexplored, winning old Piepje's good word by the way in which she held up her hands in admiration at the sight of the spotless kitchen, the walls inlaid with blue and white glazed tiles, and resplendent with pots and pans which shone like burnished gold. Nor did she forgot to notice Miekje's picturesque dress; and when she proceeded to request the damsel to let her try on her gold plates and cap, Miekje felt 22 gay that there was nothing on earth she would | whole town is upside down, the maids are Rows of snowy booths filled the Hooigracht and every space in the town where there were no canals; and crowds of peasants and their wives and children filled the town, staring at the gay contents of the booths, the costumes, the toys, and the pickles of every kind and color. Had it not been for fear of shocking her aunt too much, Lisette would have liked to have taken her place in one of the quaint merry-go-rounds, where, mounted on rude representations of lions, tigers, elephants, and crocodiles, the peasants gyrated round and round, to the strains of a noisy band. No place was sacred from the popular saturnalia, and even the Hooigracht, consecrated to the abode of the learned professors, was taken possession of by the merry-makers, who resorted in great crowds to the tempting little Paviljoens where jolly-looking peasant women, in all the glory of their best costume, stood in front of blazing fires, ladling out of large copper pans round greasy cakes called Poppertjes. splendid These fires, contained in antique-shaped copper brasiers, lit up the old elms, the fantastic gabled houses, and the quaint crowd, who danced like goodhumored bears, holding each other by the hand, shouting and stamping as they wheeled round and round in unceasing circles. The whole scene offered effects as strange and weird as those in the celebrated picture of the "Night Watch." Lisette was enchanted with the strange and unaccustomed spectacle, and, to her aunt's horror, sat at the window all day long, and insisted on being taken all round the fair, returning laden with trumpery of all kinds, which she lavished on the adoring Miekje and Piepje. "Your delight is quite childish, Lisette," said Mevrouw, reproachfully, half ashamed of a niece who insisted on seeing all the shows of the fair, the performing dog, the dwarfs and giants, and the peepshows. "Oh, aunt, it is so nice to see people so genuinely happy. Just listen how they laugh, and how jolly they do look, to be sure it is like a scene in 'Faust.'" "When you have seen a Kermesse as often as I have, you will care less about it. I think it a most tiresome infliction: the "Oh no! aunt, nothing is so good for people as a little excitement; it wakes them up from their daily jog-trot. Then one sees what people really are: in everyday life there is nothing to distinguish one character from another; but let some unusual event take place, and then you see who is quick and who is slow, who is inventive and ready to meet an emergency, and who is sluggish and unimaginative." "Lisette! Lisette, you are young, my When you are my age you will child. think very differently, and be glad that life is not all a Kermesse." "But that is just what I shall never Of course I don't want an think, aunt. everlasting Kermesse - it would be toujours perdrix. I like it because it is a novelty to see such a mass of people all so merry and enjoying themselves so thoroughly. What I should like for myself, would be to lead a life that always engrossed me, always offered me fresh interests and amusements." "Amusements are quite unnecessary, Lisette; they distract the mind from the duties of life." Lisette shrugged her shoulders, and thought her own thoughts, which were evidently not in unison with those of her staid and demure aunt. When the first novelty of her arrival was over, and Lisette was tired of laughing at the uncouth-looking language which turned café into Koffy, and denominated bonbons Flickjes and Hopjes, when the dull tide of monotonous commonplace closed over her, Lisette sighed and moaned and began to think that she had made a dreary exchange from Paris to Leyden. A whole year loomed before her. How was she to endure it? She felt herself growing as stagnant as the green ponds all overgrown with duckweed, which formed one of the features of every country house to which her aunt took her to pay solemn visits. She tried to learn Dutch, but vowed that the gutturals excoriated her throat. She had to persevere, however, as her aunt hated speaking French. Mevrouw Donker Curtius was sorely puzzled with the new experience she made as to character by watching Lisette. What could the girl be thinking of that she did not care about learning to cook, and could take no interest in the stores of linen which it formed Geertje's delight to arrange and rearrange in her deep walnut | to accompany her uncle to his beloved mucupboards? seum. "Cannot you wash up my tea-things? Hitherto Lisette had despised the It would be so much better to do some-out-of-the-world quaint things stored up thing else than play and sing all day," she there; now that the queen was coming to suggested winningly to her niece, pointing look at them they acquired fresh interest to her best Dresden china, which formed in her eyes, and she listened with profound one of the ornaments of the drawing- attention to the professor's lengthy exposition of Japanese literature. room. "Are your servants too busy?" said the mischievous girl. "Servants, indeed!" cried Mevrouw indignantly; "no servants have ever touched my best china, nor ever shallnot even Piepje. That is our Dutch fashion." Piepje, a middle-aged woman, who had been pertinaciously rubbing up a walnutwood table for the last hour, until her own face and cap were reflected in it like a mirror, here looked up approvingly. "I don't see the use of doing things that any servant can do as well or better. In Holland people will have to give up these old-world practices, and cease to be so stagnant and dreamy." 66 Stagnant and dreamy!" cried Mevrouw, amazed at her niece's flippancy. "Let me tell you, Lisette, that we are the busiest nation in Europe; we have more commerce than Denmark, Norway, and Sweden put together, and She was interrupted by the unexpected entrance of the professor. As he was always occupied at the university at this time, Geertje was as astounded as if the sun had set and the moon had taken its place in midday. 66 "How, Cornelis! you here at this time?" "Yes, I have come to tell you that there has been a message from the Hague that the queen is coming over to see the Japanese Museum this afternoon, and begs me to show her some of the newly-arrived manuscripts. I thought Lisette would like to know." "Like to know!" cried Lisette, clapping her hands with delight" like to go, I think. Uncle dear, you will take me, will you not?" she said, approaching her uncle with the most captivating glances. "Of course, aunt, you will go?" "We were never court people, niece; it is not in my way," said the demure lady; "but I have no objection to your going with your uncle." Lisette, delighted with the prospect, darted off into the garden to ransack it for all the prettiest flowers with which she could make a bouquet to present to the queen, and hastened to apparel herself with due elegance in honor of the occasion, At last a cry was raised by the small and patient crowd, who had gathered outside the museum, of "Oranje Boven" (“Up with the house of Orange!"), as a carriage, preceded by outriders, drove up to the door. The professor advanced solemnly, with many deep bows, to receive the tall and stately queen, to whom Lisette gracefully presented her bouquet. The queen, followed only by two ladiesin-waiting, entered the museum, and for some time gave the closest attention to all the professor had to show and tell her. Her evident interest in all she saw charmed the old professor, who was never weary of unrolling and translating the manuscript plays, poems, and essays which he had just received, and pointing out the peculiarities of their style, and the differences between them and Chinese literature. After thoroughly inspecting all the novelties, the queen prepared to leave, thanking, with kindly grace, the professor for all his information. "Is that your daughter?" she said, turning to glance at Lisette. 66 No, your Majesty, my niece, who has just come from Paris." "Have you been long here?" asked the queen, with that expression of personal interest in her bright blue eyes which so endeared her to all her people. "I have existed here two months, your Majesty," said Lisette, with a deep curtsy. 66 "Existed?" said the queen, with an amused smile at the pretty girl before her. 'You must come to the Hague and see if you can live there, if you can only exist at Leyden." Then turning to the professor, the queen told him it was his duty to bring his niece to a ball she was about to give. "You will come, professor; you will meet Mr. Motley, and a great many people who will interest you, and that child can dance and look pretty to please us old people." Such an invitation could not be refused. Lisette's heart danced with joy. She to go to a ball at the palace! How delightful! How kind of the queen to ask her! She could not, then, have been affronted by her saying that she only existed at Ley- | Mevrouw was quite huffy at this undisden. It was very rude, but the expression guised adoration of royalty, and took refhad come to her lips without thinking-it uge in stating explicitly, that neither she was so true. Besides, as Lisette thought nor her family ever had gone out of their of her, there seemed to be a tinge of sad- rank of life, nor sought to mix in court ness in that clever, mobile face. Could it circles. be that she, that noble lady, knew the sad- "After all, aunt, they are human beings ness of a life of inaction? Could it be in those circles; they cannot be so very difthat in the midst of her palaces, surround-ferent from other people; they laugh and ed with sights of beauty, and her ears cry, eat and sleep, just like common charmed with melodious sounds, that she folks, and are dull too, I suppose," said could ever have known the difference be- Lisette. tween life and mere existence? Strange it is that a few words carelessly uttered, perhaps the mere impulse of a passing fancy, may affect the whole of some fellow-being's destiny, and this casual meeting with the queen, this chance invitation to a court ball, was to be the turning-point of Lisette's life. She returned home enraptured with the queen, and could talk all the evening of nothing else than her beauty, urbanity, and captivating smiles. Lisette's arrival had occasioned much talk in the town of Leyden. It was well known that she was a great heiress, and, beside that solid attraction, there were few who were insensible to the bright happy face and cheerful manners of the professor's niece. All the students believed themselves over head and ears in love with her, but to none did the wise aunt open her hospitable doors except to two, Mynheer van Dam den Bouwmeester, son of a wealthy Zeeland proprietor, and Hendrik van Schoonzeppel van Laan. The former was a phlegmatic, fair youth, destined from his cradle to be a burgomaster; the other, of a more intellectual type, a good musician, and a cheerful, clever man, frequently brought his violoncello to accompany Freule Liesje. That evening Lisette was gayer than she had been since her arrival, and talked unceasingly about the pleasure it would be to go next week with her uncle to a ball at the Huis ten Bosch, the palace in the wood. "Cornelis at a ball!" cried her aunt, holding up her hands in amazement; "that will be a change of market-days." "And uncle shall dance with me too," said Lisette, nodding her head. The professor paid no attention; he was smoking away vigorously, occasionally remarking between his puffs that the queen showed a great appreciation of philological difficulties, and evinced a real interest in Oriental literature which was most remarkable in a woman. "No good comes of leaving the state of life in which one is born," said Mevrouw, didactically; "we belong to the burghers, and I say let us keep to ourselves, and the aristocrats to themselves. They don't want us, and I am sure we don't want them." Lisette would have made some mischievous answer had she not been interrupted by the arrival of Van Laan and Van Dam den Bouwmeester. They were both much taken up with a plan just approved by the government for introducing railways into the Netherlands. Lisette was charmed to hear of it. "You will all wake up then." "Wake up?" said Mevrouw, pettishly. "What are you thinking of, Lisette?" "Do you believe that railways do so much good, then?" asked Van Dam den Bouwmeester, stolidly. "Of course there can be no progress without stir and animation," responded Lisette, who was very self-sufficient after basking in the smiles of royalty. "I am doubtful of the moral effect of railways on the people," said the professor, sententiously, laying down his pipe to take a cup of coffee which his niece offered to him. "Moral effect, uncle? What can railways have to do except with material property?" exclaimed Lisette, shrugging her shoulders. "A great deal, my child. Look at England, how restless her inhabitants have become - men always at war with their employers, employers quarrelling with their men. Look at France, always in one revolution after another." "So you ascribe all that to railways?" said Van Laan, with a peculiar expression of countenance. "In a measure certainly in a great measure. Here we live more calmly, more philosophically, we do not hurry." "Festina lente," said Van Laan; "yes, we will say that is our motto, professorwe do not hurry." - you 25 "And why should we hurry?" said the | acquaintance with other countries and lanpale, phlegmatic Van Dam den Bouw- guages, profits much to any one meester; "when I go home to Arnhem I lose your own individuality, you fancy you had much rather go by Trekschuit" (canal know all about other nations, and you boat), "go leisurely along, peacefully neither know nor cultivate your own powsmoking, and admiring the rich, green ers nor trouble yourselves to understand meadows and saddle cows,* having a table your own country." before me, laden with refreshments, and a "Well, sir, I will give you a proof that I comfortable sofa, on which I can lie down do try to do something with my time. Will and sleep or smoke as I feel inclined. I Freule Lisette play a duet with me?" had much rather travel thus than go whizzing along in that noisy, screeching train, which discomposes me to such a degree that it is hours ere I can collect my thoughts again." "I can well believe that," said Lisette, with sly sarcasm; and she would have added, "Do you ever succeed in collecting them?" had she not been restrained by a reproving glance from her aunt, who much favored the future burgomaster, and lost no opportunity of dilating to her niece on his father's prosperity and beautiful property, and the excellent position which it gave to a woman to be a burgomaster's wife. "I quite agree with you," rejoined the professor after a pause, during which he had been getting to the bottom of his own views on travelling. "Nothing can equal a Trekschuit; not only does one glide gently along, without sound or motion, but one can contemplate at leisure the interest ing scenes which one passes, and recall the events of olden days, when our brave ancestors immortalized every spot with some deed of valor. It also enables one to stop at the celebrated old towns of the dear country, and behold the treasures of architecture and art which they contain. Our country has so much individuality, that it is worth while knowing it thoroughly. In other less-favored spots it may perhaps be as well to rush as tourists do from one town to another hundreds of miles off, yet even then a more leisurely survey would to my mind be more instructive. My father once took a walking-tour through the south of France, and when he came back he knew more of the country than most French people." "No one has time nowadays for such slow work," said Van Laan. "Ah! but, my friend, what new use do you young men of this generation make of your time that you are always complaining of having none to spare? I do not see that all this hurrying and scurrying about the face of the world, all the superficial Lisette was quite willing, as nothing wearied her more than listening to the old professor's long-winded speeches on the degeneration of the country. CHAPTER III. OTTO DE HOVEN. "RIGA, June 18. "MY DEAR NEPHEW,- It is impossible for me either to increase your allowance or to advance you money. The terms of your father's will are strict, it is absolutely necessary for me, as your guardian, to adhere to them; if you cannot manage to live on your ample allowance at so quiet a post as the Hague, you must resign diplomacy, return to Courland, and either take some government office or farm your own property Never, never, most emphatically never," said a young man who was lounging in an easy-chair reading the above avuncular exordium, and smoking a cigarette. "What's the matter, De Hoven - you seem excited, old fellow?" said the American attaché, Mr. Greenleaf Parrot, who sat astride on a chair, with his arms crossed on the back, contemplating with quizzical expression of countenance the rueful face of Otto de Hoven. "So would you be if you had such an uncle as I have, such a selfish, unprincipled old miser "Come, don't be too hard on the aged gentleman," said Mr. Parrot, who had taken a piece of pencil from his pocket and was whittling away with keen relish, watching the shavings light on the thick Deventer carpet. "You would be hard if you knew what a screw he was. He actually thinks me extravagant! Now what could be simpler than this room?" Here De Hoven looked round at the remarkable pre-Renaissance furniture which adorned his salon, on the walls of which hung some pictures of the Cologne school, which, whether they were "priceless," as he called them, or not, had cost him a pretty price at an old Jew picture-dealer's at Bruges. "I guess I'd sell some of that gim |