th pink and
purple flowers.

Men and girls rowed home from milking, and hung their green and scarlet
milk-pails in rows on the outer walls of their farmhouse homes.
Fishing-nets were looped from pole to pole by the water-side, in such
curious fashion as to look like vineyards of trailing brown vines; and
as we drew near to Sneek, where we planned to stay the night, we began
to meet quaint lighters, with much picturesque family life going on, on
board; children playing with queer, homemade toys; ancient, white-capped
dames knitting; girls flirting with young men on passing peat-boats--men
in scarlet jerseys which, repeated in the smooth water, looked like
running fire under glass.

The old seventeenth-century water-gate at Sneek was so beautiful, that
we expected to like the place with the ugly name; but after all we hated
it, and decided to spend another night in our own floating houses.

All sorts of funny, water-noises waked me early; but then, I hadn't
slept very soundly, because I couldn't help thinking a good deal about
Mr. van Buren, who found a telegram waiting for him at Sneek, and went
away from us by the first train he could catch. I don't know what was in
the telegram, but he looked rather miserable as he read it, and I
wondered a good deal in the night if his mother had called him back
because Freule Menela van der Windt was not pleased at having him stay
so long with us.

Nell thought our next day's run, going through the River Boorn to the
Sneeker Meer, past Grouw and on to Leeuwarden, even more delightful than
the day before; but it didn't seem as interesting to me, somehow.
Perhaps it was having a person who was partly Frisian standing by me all
the time, and telling me things, which made the difference; anyway, I
had a homesick feeling, as if something were lacking. Mr. Starr said it
would be nice to spend a honeymoon on board one of the nice little
wherries we saw in the big meer; but I thought of Mr. van Buren and
Freule Menela having theirs on one, and it gave me quite a sinking of
the heart. I tried not to show that I was sad, but I'm afraid Mr. Starr
guessed, for in the afternoon he gave me a water-color sketch he had
made in the morning, on deck. He called it a "rough, impressionist
thing," but it is really exquisite; the water pale lilac, with silver
frills of foam, just as it looked in the light when he sat painting;
fields of cloth-of-gold, starred with wild flowers in the foreground;
far-