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The long, straight string of houses was knotted now and then into the semblance of a village, but never was the string broken between Hoorn and Enkhuisen, and though we saw so many, each new doll-house made us laugh as if it were the first.

When she heard that "Lorelei-Mascotte's" motor had been injured slightly, and we could not go on, she suggested that while we were waiting we might take steamer to the island, stop all night, and come back to Enkhuisen next day. By that time Hendrik, our chauffeur, would have repaired the damage. "Urk isn't worth seeing," said our skipper. Nell asked if he had ever been there.

Such a spot was romance itself, and it would be almost a crime not to visit it. The steamer would leave Enkhuisen after luncheon, returning next day, so we must stop on the island for about eighteen hours; but as the guides mentioned an inn, it would be as simple as interesting to spend a night at the idyllic little place.

I saw a beggar once in Holland in the townlet of Enkhuisen. Crowds were hurrying up from the side streets to have a look at him; the idea at first seemed to be that he was doing it for a bet. He turned out to be a Portuguese. They offered him work in the docks until he could get something better to do at wages equal in English money to about ten shillings a day.

The men were all sure that no sailing-boat could get to Enkhuisen, as the wind was exactly in the wrong quarter; but just as our hearts were on their way down to the boots Tibe had gnawed so much, a brown young man, with crisp black curls and ear-rings, said we could go to Kampen if we liked.

Jonkheer Brederode had planned to go northward, skirting the coast to see two more Dead Cities of the Zuider Zee, Hoorn and Enkhuisen, and cut across the sea to Stavoren on the other side, to enter the Frisian Meers. But now he refused to take us that way.

It was the entrance to Enkhuisen, the last of the Dead Cities which we were to visit a strange, sad old town, with a charming park, churches three times too big for it, and beautiful seventeenth-century houses, small but perfect as cameos.

That was the way it happened that we had two nights at Enkhuisen; but the second we spent on "Lorelei-Mascotte" and "Waterspin," sleeping on the boats for the first time, and it was great fun. The next morning early, we had a picnic breakfast on board, making coffee with the grand apparatus in Mr.

In a moment of quixotic generosity at Enkhuisen, I promised Phyllis, as a newly adopted, if reluctant, brother, that I would make everything right for her. Afterwards, I was inclined to repent of the plan which had sprung, Minerva-like full-grown and helmeted, from my suffering brain. But it was too late then.

"In any case, it's pleasanter to drive from here to Hoorn and Enkhuisen," went on the Jonkheer, "and the only real reason for sticking to the boat even in fine weather would have been that you came to 'do' Holland in a motor-boat, and wanted to be true to your principles.