pommes_ better than almost any thing else that they could have, whether
for breakfast or dinner.

After having given the order for the breakfast to a very nice and
tidy-looking Dutch girl, whose forehead and temples were adorned with a
profusion of golden ornaments, after the fashion of the young women of
North Holland, the commissioner came back, and the whole party set out
to walk through the village. There were no streets, properly so called,
but only walks, about as wide as the gravel walks of a garden, which
meandered about among the houses and yards, in a most extraordinary
manner. There were beautiful views, from time to time, presented over
the water of the canal on which the village was situated; and there were
a great number of small canals which seemed to penetrate every where,
with the prettiest little bridges over them, and landing steps, and
bowers, and pavilions along the borders of them, and gayly-painted boats
fastened at kitchen doors, and a thousand other such-like objects,
characteristic of the intimate intermingling of land and water which
prevails in this extraordinary country.

[Illustration: THE DAIRY VILLAGE.]

Every thing was, however, on so small a scale, and so scrupulously neat
and pretty, that it looked more like a toy village than one built for
the every-day residence of real men.

After walking on for about a quarter of a mile, the commissioner said
that he would show them the interior of one of the dairy houses, where
the cheeses were made,--for the business of this town was the making of
cheeses from the milk of the cows that feed on the green polders that
lie all around them.

"The stalls for the cows," said James, "are in the same house in which
the family lives; but the cows are not kept there in summer, and so we
shall find the stalls empty."

So saying, James turned aside up a little paved walk which led to the
door of a very pretty looking house. He opened the door without any
ceremony, and Mr. George and Rollo went in.

The door was near one end of the house, and it opened into a passage way
which extended back through the whole depth of it. On one side was a
row of stalls, or cribs, for the cows. On the other, were doors opening
into the rooms used for the family. A very nice looking Dutch woman, who
had apparently seen the party from her window, came out through this
side door into the passage way, to welcome them when they came.

The stalls for the cows were all beau