as the sweet
twins tried to make us understand; and the pretty creatures are proud of
her, thinking little of their own beauty. Sometimes I fancied that a
shade of contempt passed over her face when Robert ventured a remark
which showed him more accomplished as sportsman than scholar; but, if
she noticed that he turned to Phil or me with any brightening of
interest, she at once took pains to engage his attention.

They talked in low, pleasant voices, scarcely raising their tones or
making a gesture; and there was always that faint suggestion of the
Scotch accent, whether they spoke English or broke into Dutch. When I
remarked upon it, Cousin Cornelia laughed and said it was perhaps the
common Celtic ancestry; and that if the Dutch heard Gaelic talked, they
could recognize a few words here and there.

It was not more than an hour after we finished our coffee, that tea was
brought, with more beautiful china, and a great deal of handsome silver.
What with this potent mixture of stimulants, and being in a new house,
and thinking exciting thoughts of the future, I felt I shouldn't be able
to sleep. Nevertheless, after we'd said good-night, and Phil and I were
undressing, I was not pleased when Cousin Cornelia knocked at the door.

"She has come about the motor-boat," I thought, "to tell us we oughtn't
to go. Heaven grant me strength to resist." For in her quilted Japanese
silk dressing-gown she looked larger and more formidable than ever.

Not a word did she say about the motor-boat at first. It was our past
which seemed to interest her, not our future. As a relation she has the
right to ask me things about myself, and Phil's history is inextricably
tangled up with mine.

She wanted to know where we lived in London, and how: also on what,
though she didn't put it as crudely as that. I was frank, and told her
about my serial stories and Phil's typing.

"I suppose you think we're mad to break up our work and go on a
motor-boat tour in Holland, as if we were millionaires, when really
we're poor girls," I said, before she had time to reprove us. "But we
have each about a hundred and twenty pounds a year, whatever happens, so
it isn't as desperate as you might think. Besides, it is going to be
_the_ time of our lives. Even my stepsister feels so now, though she was
against it at first, and neither of us would give it up for anything."

"I don't think you should give it up," said Cousin Cornelia. You might
have knocked me d