surprising familiarity with an unopened volume, presented by
Saint Nicholas. It was strange, too, that the saint should have found
certain things made by the elder children and had actually placed them
upon the table, labeled with parents' and grandparents' names. But all
were too much absorbed in happiness to notice slight inconsistencies.
Hilda saw, on her father's face, the rapt expression he always wore when
he spoke of Jakob Cats, so he put her armful of books upon the table and
resigned herself to listen.

"Old Father Cats, my child, was a great poet, not a writer of plays like
the Englishman, Shakespeare, who lived in his time. I have read them in
the German and very good they are--very, very good--but not like Father
Cats. Cats sees no daggers in the air; he has no white women falling in
love with dusky Moors; no young fools sighing to be a lady's glove; no
crazy princes mistaking respectable old gentlemen for rats. No, no. He
writes only sense. It is great wisdom in little bundles, a bundle for
every day of your life. You can guide a state with Cats's poems, and you
can put a little baby to sleep with his pretty songs. He was one of the
greatest men of Holland. When I take you to The Hague, I will show you
the Kloosterkerk where he lies buried. THERE was a man for you to study,
my sons! He was good through and through. What did he say?

"O Lord, let me obtain this from Thee
To live with patience, and to die with pleasure!

*{O Heere! laat my daat van uwen hand verwerven,
Te leven met gedult, en met vermaak te sterven.}

"Did patience mean folding his hands? No, he was a lawyer, statesman,
ambassador, farmer, philosopher, historian, and poet. He was keeper of
the Great Seal of Holland! He was a--Bah! there is too much noise here,
I cannot talk." And mynheer, looking with great astonishment into the
bowl of his meerschaum, for it had gone out, nodded to his vrouw and
left the apartment in great haste.

The fact is, his discourse had been accompanied throughout with a
subdued chorus of barking dogs, squeaking cats, and bleating lambs, to
say nothing of a noisy ivory cricket that the baby was whirling with
infinite delight. At the last, little Huygens, taking advantage of the
increasing loudness of mynheer's tones, had ventured a blast on his new
trumpet, and Wolfert had hastily attempted an accompaniment on the drum.
This had brought matters to a crisis, and it was good for the little