replied Nell, looking so brilliantly pretty, with her flushed
cheeks and sparkling eyes, that I felt there might still be consolations
in life for me, if only I could attain them.

The situation was now becoming strained on all sides. Not that it was
made so by the conversation I have just set down, but by the peculiar
relations of several persons in the party.

The original plan of the Robert-Menela-Twins visit was that, having
arrived at Utrecht, they should be taken on by us to Rotterdam, before
"Mascotte" and "Waterspin" bore us northward again to Zeeland. This
roundabout way of journeying was the penalty of our beautiful day on the
Vecht; because, to see the Vecht after Utrecht, we were obliged to land
at Amsterdam; and as there was no nearer way of reaching Zeeland than by
passing Rotterdam, we were not going out of our way in landing the van
Buren party so near home. But to go by canal from Amsterdam to
Rotterdam would take us one long day; and as we had a pair of severed
lovers among us, that long day's association, on a small boat, would be
awkward.

The obvious thing was for Robert to invent a pretext and vanish. But
Robert, no doubt, had his own reasons for wishing to stay, and besides,
he had the excuse that he could not go without taking his sisters. If
his sisters went, they could not well leave the friend they had brought
with them; neither did it seem practicable for her to depart in their
company as she had just jilted their brother, who would have to act as
escort for all three. This difficulty must have presented itself to
Freule Menela, for she gave no indication of a desire to leave us.
Perhaps she thought it better to endure the ills she knew than fly to
others she knew not; and by way of accustoming herself to those ills,
she kept unremittingly near me, when, after dinner, we assembled in
"Aunt Fay's" inevitable sitting-room.

If I were a woman I should have been on the verge of hysterics, but
being handicapped by manhood, I merely yearned to bash some one on the
head as a relief to my feelings; and lest that some one should be Freule
Menela, at last I got to my feet and announced my intention of taking a
walk in the rain.

"What wouldn't I give to go with you!" exclaimed the young lady. "It's
so close here, and I've had no exercise to-day. I am fond of walking in
the rain."

"I will chaperon you," said the L.C.P.

"Oh, we need not trouble you, Lady MacNairne," protested Menela. "It
might