onally at
ease, I should have been too busy with my own thoughts to do credit to
myself or country in conversation. As I sipped caravan tea from a
flower-like cup of old Dresden, I wondered what were Nell's sensations
on beholding the home and mother of the despised skipper whom it had
been her delight to snub and tease.

Evidently he is adored, and looked up to as the one perfect being, by
his mother, who would hardly have smiled as graciously on the beautiful
Miss Van Buren, could some imp have whispered in her ear how that young
lady treated her host, when he was nobody but a poor skipper on board a
motor-boat. Through some careless word which gave a turn to the
conversation, I discovered that Liliendaal is not the only house reigned
over by Jonkheer Brederode, alias Alb. There's one at The Hague, but
they "find Liliendaal pleasant in summer."

Indeed, it appears to me that "pleasant" is only a mild and modest word
for the place; yet its owner can cheerfully desert it, week after week,
to rub along as a mere despised Albatross on board a tuppenny ha'penny
motor-boat, running about the canals of Holland.

Of course, he is in love, which covers a multitude of hardships. But it
isn't as clear as it used to be, which Angel he is in love with. Perhaps
the latest snubbing was the last drop in his cup, which caused the whole
to overflow, and he had to fill it up again--for another. He poured
scorn upon me, in our first passage of arms, for being in love with two
girls at once; but how much more poetical and at the same time more
generous to love two at a time than not to love one well enough to know
your own mind!

In any case, it was Phyllis who shone on the occasion of our call at
Liliendaal, and it was she who seemed to make the impression upon the
gracious mother. Whether it was the fact that she is English, or whether
it was because she could talk to her hostess--as if she knew
them--about various distinguished titled beings whom the lady of
Liliendaal had not seen for a long time; or whether it was because
Phyllis once had a cousin who wrote a book about the Earls of Helvelyn
(the lady's father was an Earl of Helvelyn) at all events the honors
were for Phyllis; and if Alb really had changed his mind about the two
girls, as the L.C.P. is continually saying, he ought to have been
pleased.

[Illustration: _It was Phyllis who shone at Liliendaal_]

Phyllis and my alleged aunt were both particularly gracious to him