has wanted to
tell me I must be sure to see so and so, or do so and so, and I have had
to answer that I have seen it or done it, and liked it as much as he
thought I would.

If our trip could be improved it would be by having Mr. van Buren with
us; but naturally that's impossible, as he's a man of affairs, and
Freule Menela van der Windt would hardly sympathize with his kind wish
to take care of his cousin, if he carried it so far as to leave her for
any length of time, simply on account of Nell. As it is, his letters,
and exchanging ideas with him, have been a pleasure to me, and I should
have liked to share it with Nell--as we always have shared
everything--if I hadn't been afraid she would laugh. Her cousin is too
fine a fellow to be laughed at, so I have protected him by keeping our
correspondence to myself.

I didn't want to come to Holland, as it seemed such a terrifying
adventure for Nell and me to rush away from England and go darting about
in a motor-boat; and so horribly extravagant to spend all the money poor
Captain Noble left, in enjoying ourselves for a few weeks. However, it
_was_ to be, and there is something about Holland which appeals to me
more than I dreamed any country except England could. I loved it almost
from the minute we landed; but when you like any person in a foreign
place it makes you like the place itself better.

I do think Holland is the most complete little country imaginable. While
you are in it, it feels like the whole world, because you appear to be
in the very middle of the world; and, when you look over the wide, flat
spaces, you think that your eyes reach to the end of everything.

And then, all you see is so characteristic of Holland, even the sunrises
and sunsets. Nothing that you find in Holland could be in its right
place anywhere else on earth; but perhaps one can hardly say that
Holland _is_ on earth. Now I've got to know the "Hollow Land" (as
Jonkheer Brederode often calls it), I think if I were kidnapped from
England, taken up in a balloon, and dropped down here, even in a town
I'd never seen, and without _any_ canals, I should say, the minute I
opened my eyes and found my breath, "Why, I'm in dear little Holland."

I should like to be here in winter. Mr. van Buren says if we'll come
he'll teach me to skate; and, according to Jonkheer Brederode, he is a
"champion long-distance skater." But then Mr. van Buren told me the same
thing about Jonkheer Brederode. They are