e Dutch have canonized storks!" I exclaimed.

And just then we arrived at the New Church, which looked inconceivably
old, and inside was like a vast prison. But the tomb of black and white
marble was fine, almost too fine, too much encrusted with ornament to
perpetuate the memory of William the Silent. Still, I felt a thrill as I
stood looking at the white, recumbent figure of the man who made
Holland, and altered the face of Europe, resting so quietly after the
storms of life, with his dog at his feet--the loyal little beast who
saved him at Malines, and starved to death in the end, rather than live
on in a dull world empty of its master.

I lingered for many minutes, remembering the eyes of the portrait, so
warm with life and power, and Phil had to come and lead me away to the
tomb of Hugo Grotius, the "miracle of Europe." Even Robert grew warm on
the subject of Grotius, and put him ahead of Pitt, as the youthful
prodigy of the world. What had he left unaccomplished when he was
eighteen? And what story had ever been written by Dumas, or any other,
to compare with his in melodramatic interest? I didn't know enough
details of the brilliant being's history to argue (although I have
always the most intense yearning to argue with Cousin Robert), but I
made a note to read them up, in case I should ever be called upon to
write a historical novel at short notice.

Robert discouraged Phil from buying the ware of Delft on its native
heath, and we spun along twice as fast in leaving the town as we had in
coming, either because a Dutchman's dinner-hour is sacred, or because
this particular Dutchman was anxious to exchange our society for that of
his fiancee. We flew over the smooth klinker road at such a rate that,
had it been England, a policeman would have sprung from every bush.
Nobody seemed to mind here, however; and the few horses we met had the
air of turning up their noses at us, despite the physical difficulty in
evoking that expression on an equine profile.

The country grew prettier. It was the sort of landscape old-fashioned
artists used to produce out of their abundant imagination, scorning to
be tied down by models, dashing in anything charming or _outre_ which
they happened to think of at the moment, and jumbling together an
extravagant whole too good to be true. But there were only a few miles
of it left after Delft: and we hadn't reveled in impossibly delicious
farm-yards and supernaturally bowery gardens half