ve coffee and cakes,
beside a great bunch of water lilies on the table. It's very fine, I
can tell you; only (between ourselves), though I was born here, I shall
never fancy the odor of stagnant water that hangs about most of the
summer houses. Nearly every one you see is built over a ditch. Probably
I feel it more, from having lived so long in England."

"Perhaps I shall notice it too," said Ben, "if a thaw comes. The early
winter has covered up the fragrant waters for my benefit--much obliged
to it. Holland without this glorious skating wouldn't be the same thing
at all."

"How very different you are from the Poots!" exclaimed Lambert, who had
been listening in a sort of brown study. "And yet you are cousins--I
cannot understand it."

"We ARE cousins, or rather we have always considered ourselves such, but
the relationship is not very close. Our grandmothers were half-sisters.
MY side of the family is entirely English, while he is entirely Dutch.
Old Great-grandfather Poot married twice, you see, and I am a descendant
of his English wife. I like Jacob, though, better than half of my
English cousins put together. He is the truest-hearted, best-natured boy
I ever knew. Strange as you may think it, my father became accidentally
acquainted with Jacob's father while on a business visit to Rotterdam.
They soon talked over their relationship--in French, by the way--and
they have corresponded in the language ever since. Queer things come
about in this world. My sister Jenny would open her eyes at some of Aunt
Poot's ways. Aunt is a thorough lady, but so different from mother--and
the house, too, and furniture, and way of living, everything is
different."

"Of course," assented Lambert, complacently, as if to say You could
scarcely expect such general perfection anywhere else than in Holland.
"But you will have all the more to tell Jenny when you go back."

"Yes, indeed. I can say one thing--if cleanliness is, as they claim,
next to godliness, Broek is safe. It is the cleanest place I ever saw
in my life. Why, my Aunt Poot, rich as she is, scrubs half the time,
and her house looks as if it were varnished all over. I wrote to mother
yesterday that I could see my double always with me, feet to feet, in
the polished floor of the dining room."

"Your DOUBLE! That word puzzles me; what do you mean?"

"Oh, my reflection, my apparition. Ben Dobbs number two."

"Ah, I see," exclaimed Van Mounen. "Have you ever been in your Au