d it is no place for ladies to be hustled about in."

"I've always found 'Tom, Dick, and Harry,' very inoffensive fellows,"
Nell persisted.

"You've never been to a Dutch Kermess."

"That's why I want to go."

"So you shall, before dark."

"And after dark, too," she added, as obstinately as if she had been a
Frisian.

"That is impossible," said Jonkheer Brederode, his mouth and chin
looking hard and firm.

Nell didn't say any more, though she shrugged her shoulders; but the
expression of her eyes was ominous, and I felt that she was planning
mischief.

We walked out to the Kermess, which Lady MacNairne and Mr. Starr
pronounced very like a French country fair; but it seemed wonderful to
me. There were streets and streets of booths, little and big, gorgeously
decorated, where people in the costumes of their provinces sold every
imaginable kind of thing. Nell was so well-behaved that she evidently
disarmed Jonkheer Brederode's suspicions, if he had shared mine; and
when she proposed buying a quantity of sweets and cheap toys for us to
give away to families of children upon the lighters we passed on canals,
he was ready to humor her. We chose all sorts of toys and
sweets--enough to last us for days of playing Santa Claus--and bargained
in Dutch with the people who sold, making them laugh sometimes. Then,
Jonkheer Brederode took us to all the best side-shows: the giant steer,
as big as sixteen every-day oxen; the smallest horse in the world, a
fairy beast, thoughtfully doing sums in the sand with his miniature
forepaw; the fat lady, very bored and warm; the fair Circassian, who
lured audiences into a hot theater with tinsel decorations like a
Christmas-tree and hundreds of colored lights. There were other sights;
but Jonkheer Brederode said these were the only ones for ladies, and
hurried us by some of the booths with painted pictures of three-headed
people or girls cut off at the waist, which Nell wished particularly to
see. He wouldn't let us go into the merry-go-rounds either, and by the
time we got back to the hotel--our hands full of dolls, tops, spotted
wooden horses, boxes of blocks, and packets of nougat surmounted with
chenille monkeys--she was boiling with pent-up resentment.

Already we were late for dinner, and we still had to dress; but
Nell--who shared a room with me, as the hotel was crowded--said that she
must slip out again, to buy something which she wished to select when
alone; she would not be