hat I _do_ see, when I come to ask
myself, like that, in so many words," said Phyllis. "I do wish you'd
advise me. Will you, dear?"

"Of course, if I can," came the answer, a little shortly.

"Well, supposing _you_ cared more than you thought you ought, for a man
it couldn't be right to care for at all, because he belonged to some one
else, what would you do?"

"Try to stop caring for him," said Nell.

"That's what I think, too; only it might be hard, mightn't it? Do you
suppose it would be easier if a girl did her best to learn to love
another man, who was free to care for her, and did seem to care for her,
so as to take her mind off the--the _forbidden_ man?"

No answer. (I realized that they could not have heard the falling
match-box, and I was at my window-door now, going in. But the door is a
Dutch door, which means that it is cleaned and varnished every day; and
the varnish stuck.)

"You might tell me what you think, Nell. You have had so much
experience, in serials."

"Oh!" exclaimed Nell. "I--I _hate_ you, Phil!"

Their door evidently did not stick, for suddenly it slammed, and I
guessed that Nell had rushed in and banged it shut behind her.

* * * * * *

Now, it is the next day but one after this episode, and we are at
Utrecht, after having visited an old "kastel" or two more in the
neighborhood of Arnhem, and then following the Rhine where it winds
among fields like a wide, twisted ribbon of silver worked into a fabric
of green brocade. Its high waves, roughened by huge side-wheel steamers,
spilt us into the Lek; and so, past queer little ferries and a great
crowded lock or two, where Alb used his Club flag, we came straight to
the fine old city of which one hears and knows more, somehow, than of
any other in Holland.

I planned to do a little painting here; but, after all, I don't seem to
take as much interest in composing pictures as in trying to puzzle out
the meanings of several things.

I suppose a man never can hope to understand women; but even a woman
sometimes fails to understand another woman. For instance, goaded by
unsatisfied curiosity to know, not only my own fate, but everybody
else's fate, all round, I was tempted to take advantage of nephewhood,
and put the case, as I saw it, to the L.C.P.

I ventured to tell her what I overheard between the girls on their
balcony.

"Now, you must know," I said, "that I'm in love with Phyllis."

"I thought it