sm
that lay in her words. "Otherwise, you see, my mother might think
I had made fun of you; and I don't want that to happen. If you will
only do that----"

"I will do it, Femke!"

"Then you must go home and begin at once."

Thus she sent him away. As she told him "Good-bye" she noticed all
at once that he was too large for her to kiss. A few hours later,
when Father Jansen was calling on her mother and incidentally saw
Walter's painting, Walter suddenly became a child again. The priest
had said that in Dutch Ophelia meant Flora, who was the patron-saint
of roses and forget-me-nots.

"Oh, that picture is from a little boy, a very small boy. He's about
ten years old--or nine. He's certainly not older than nine!"

"Girl, you are foolish!" cried the mother. "The boy is fifteen."

"Yes, that may be--but I just meant that he's still only a child."

She stuck Ophelia away in some hidden nook, and Mrs. Claus and Father
Jansen never saw that new edition of the old flower-goddess again.

"Femke, I will do it!" Walter had said.

There was really reason to believe that he would learn faster now;
but Pennewip's instruction would wear Femke's colors. Walter knew
very well that in requiring this service she had had his own welfare
in view; but this showed her interest in him, and was not so bad. How
would it have looked, he thought, if, after all that had gone before,
he had answered: "Everything except that!"

Of course he would have greatly preferred to serve his lady on some
journey full of adventure. But one cannot select for one's self
heroic deeds. In these days Hercules and St. George would have to
put up with miniature dragons.

At all events, Walter took hold of his work in earnest. He studied his
"Ippel," his "Strabbe," his "National History" and even the "Gender
of Nouns," and everything else necessary to the education of a good
Netherlander. Poetry was included; and Walter's accomplishments along
this line were such that other "Herculeses" might have envied him.

He had never read the stories of tournaments. No enchantress gave
him a charmed coat of mail; no Minerva put the head of Medusa on
his shield--no, nothing of all that. But--Keesje, the butcher's boy,
might look sharp for his laurels!

In justice to Walter it must be said that he gave his opponent fair
warning, in true knightly style.

At the end of three months Walter was actually the first in his
classes. Pennewip was compelled to take notice of