iving at
Rotterdam. The program seemed simple enough from a distance--just to go
and pick up our boat (so to speak) and motor away with it; but when we
actually started off, pioneered by a small boy from the hotel, to take
possession of our property, I had a horrid sinking of the heart, which I
wouldn't for many heads of whiskered old gentlemen on gulden have
confessed to Phil. I felt that "something was going to happen."

The "ten minutes'" walk prolonged itself into twenty, and then there was
a ferry over a wide, brown, swift-flowing stream. This brought us to a
little basin opening from the river, where one or two small yachts and
other craft nestled together.

"Look!" I exclaimed, with a sudden throb of excitement, which bubbled up
like a geyser through the cold crust of my depression. "_There_ she is!"

"Who?" cried Phyllis, starting. "Any one we know?"

"Our boat, silly. 'Lorelei.' I suppose you think she ought to be called
'White Elephant'?"

Yes, there she was, with "Lorelei" in gold letters on her bows, this
fair siren who had lured us across the North Sea; and instead of being
covered up and shabby to look at after her long winter of retirement and
neglect, she had the air of being ready to start off at a moment's
notice to begin a cruise.

Every detail of her smart white dress looked new. There was no fear of
delay for painting and patching. Clean cocoa-nut matting was spread upon
the floor of the little decks fore and aft; the brass rails dazzled our
eyes with their brilliance; the windows of the roofed cabin were
brighter than the Ko-hi-nur, the day I went to see it in the Tower of
London; basket-chairs, with pink and blue and primrose silk cushions,
stood on deck, their arms open in a welcoming gesture. There was a
little table, too, which looked born and bred for a tea-table. It really
was extraordinary.

"Oh, Nell, it is a _pretty_ boat!" The words were torn from Phil in
reluctant admiration. "Of course it's most awfully reckless of us to
have come, and I don't see what's going to happen in the end; but--but
it _does_ seem as if we might enjoy ourselves. Fancy having tea on our
own deck! Why, it's almost a yacht! I wonder what Lady Hutchinson would
say if she could see us sitting in those chairs! She'd be polite to me
for a whole month."

Lady Hutchinson is Phil's one titled client. Long ago her husband was a
grocer. She writes sentimental poetry, and her idea of dignity is to
snub her type-wri