helmet?" I asked.

She laughed. "I'm not thinking about sleep yet. It's just the edge of
the evening--in Kermess week. Watch me."

She undid her hair, which is very long and thick, and seems even thicker
than it is, if possible, because it is so wavy. Then she plaited it
tightly into two braids, and straining, and pulling, and pushing the
little ripples and rings back from her face, as well as she could, she
managed to put on the helmet. Then she tied the shawl over her
shoulders; and as she had on a short dark skirt which was unnoticeable,
she looked, for all the world, like a beautiful Frisian girl.

[Illustration: _She looked, for all the world, like a beautiful Frisian
girl_]

I told her this, and she said, "Will you be a Frisian girl too, and come
out with me to see the Kermess at the time when it's worth seeing?"

I was dreadfully startled, and of course said "No." I had never done
anything in disguise, and I never would.

"Very well, then," said Nell, "I'll go alone."

I tried to dissuade her; but she did not object to shocking Jonkheer
Brederode.

"It would do him good," she said. "Only he won't have the chance this
time, because no one would ever recognize me, would they?"

I looked hard at her, and was not quite sure, though the pushing back of
the hair and the wearing of the helmet did change her wonderfully, to
say nothing of the shawl. But she looked far too beautiful to go out
alone in the night. The golden head-dress gave her hair the color of
copper beech leaves, and the gleam of the metal so close to the face
made her complexion transparent, as if a light were shining through a
thin sheet of mother-o'-pearl.

When I found that she was determined, I told her that I would go, rather
than she should run the risk alone; but she only laughed, and said
there was no risk. Even if our skipper were right about foreigners,
surely two Frisian girls of the lower classes might walk about at the
fair, when the best fun was going on; we should find plenty of others
exactly like ourselves. And when I'd tried the helmet on before the
mirror, I could not resist wishing that Mr. van Buren might have seen
it--simply to amuse him, of course.

The next thing was to steal down-stairs without being seen. We wrapped
our shawls over our heads, helmets and all; but we need not have feared,
every one was away at some entertainment or other, and we did not meet a
soul. Once outside the hotel, we rearranged the shawls,