pressions of the fair faces
were beautifully mild, also, and it was not strange to hear Miss Rivers
pronounce the women angels and the children cherubs.

The group at the hay-boats formed the chorus; but we had not been on
land for many minutes before the principal characters in the play began
to appear. A young girl, who might be called the leading lady, came
tripping down to the harbor with a tiny child hanging to each hand. All
three were apparently dressed alike, in rich embroideries and full
skirts to their ankles, worn over an incredible number of petticoats;
but I could tell by a small rosette on the cap of the middle child that
it was a boy.

The trio approached, smiling seraphically; and it goes without saying
that the three ladies began petting the two fantastic babes.

"How do you do? You like see inside a Marken house?" asked the pretty
girl, speaking English with the voice of a young siren.

They all answered that they would be delighted.

"I show my home. You come with me."

Starr and I were bidden to follow, and I would not spoil sport by
letting it be known to the actress that one member of the audience was a
Dutchman. The charming creature with her two bobbing golden curls was
knitting a stocking almost as long as her little brother, and as she
turned to show the way, she never for an instant ceased work. Toiling
after her, we walked along the dyke where the fishermen's houses stand
in flows, hoisted on poles like storks' nests, out of the reach of
inundations.

Needles glittering, our guide led us to the foot of a steep flight of
steps belonging to a house like all the other houses; so much like, that
it would seem we were being ushered into an ordinary specimen of a
fisher-family dwelling; but I knew better.

Now the scene changed. The first stage-setting was Marken Harbor with
the hay-boats. For the second act we had the interior of the honest
fisherman's cottage. And what an interior it was!

In all Europe there is no such place as Marken, no such dresses, no such
golden curls, no such rooms as these into which a coquettishly capped
mother with a marvelous doll of a baby in her arms, was sweetly inviting
us.

"Only think of these fisher-folk living in such wonderful little
jewel-caskets of houses!" exclaimed Phyllis, to be echoed by murmurs of
admiration from the others. But I said nothing. And it really was like
wandering into a fairy picture-book. It was impossible to imagine any
othe