"I told you so!" said his sister, triumphantly. "Our organ in the Boston Music Hall has five thousand four hundred and seventy

four pipes, and eighty-four

stops. Come, let us hear no more about the great Haarlem organ."

"I only wish the Boston organ were in as big and fine a hall as this church," said Charles.

They had yet one place to visit, and that was the Town Hall in the market - place. The entrance hall had an old timber roof, and they lingered in it for a while, looking at some grisly old portraits and stained glass, but chiefly at a painting, occupying a large part of one end, and representing the defense of Haarlem, when the Spaniards besieged it, and finally took it, in 1573. There was a wild medley of arms and legs; but the chief fact recorded in the picture was the part borne by women. One of them was shown pouring a bucket of boiling water down the back of one of the besiegers. “What frightful times!" said Mrs. Bodley.

"But what courageous women!" exclaimed her brother. "Don't

you remember Kenan Hasselaar, a refined and noble woman, a widow, who headed a troop of three hundred girls and women, whom she armed with sword, musket, and dagger? No wonder the Spaniards were seven months capturing Haarlem!"

In another room was the museum, and what especially interested them was the collection of curiosities relating to Coster and the discovery of printing.

66

Why," said Charles, "I was not so very wrong, after all. Coster was a sexton. His name was Laurenz Janszoon, and he was a sexton of the Great Church."

"Yes," said his father. "The people of Haarlem are determined to believe in their Coster. They have his statue, and they show the house where he was born, and the wood where he cut into the bark of trees and learned how to make movable type; and here they have this museum, with all manner of curiosities. They certainly have persuaded themselves, and now they are doing their best to persuade other people."

"But don't you believe Coster did invent printing, father?"

"If he did, the Haarlem people have not proved it. Their socalled proofs are a bundle of inconsistencies. I have no doubt that in the discovery of printing, as in other inventions, a number of persons were busily experimenting at the same time, and a sexton of Haarlem may have been one of them; but these undated books and his house and statue don't prove it."

"Good-by, Coster," said Sarah, with a wave of her hand.

I believe you did it, for you were a Dutchman."

"But

"We missed one thing," said Mrs. Van Wyck, as they were seated in the train, on their way back to Amsterdam. "The guide-book says that Haarlem is famous for its hyacinths and tulips."

"To be sure," said her husband; "but I should n't ask to see them in August. Besides, it is the historic tulips that interest us most."

"What do you mean by historic tulips, father?" asked Sarah.

"Did you never hear how Holland once went crazy over bulbs? It was just after Winthrop and his friends came over to Boston that the tulip mania broke out in Holland. People speculated in tulips as now they speculate in railway stocks, and rare bulbs brought as high prices as rare paintings; not only so, but people bought and sold bulbs which did not exist, just as they sometimes do now with stocks. There was one famous variety called the Semper Augustus, and it is said that as much as thirteen thousand florins, or, say, over five thousand dollars, was paid for a single Semper Augustus ; and the absurd thing was that when not a single Semper Augustus was to be had they kept on buying and selling it. A few became rich; the money passed rapidly from one pocket to another, and now and then stayed altogether in one man's pocket. One speculator in Amsterdam made as much as sixty-eight thousand florins in four months. At one time there were said to be just two roots of the Semper Augustus in the country,- one at Amsterdam, the other at Haarlem. For one of these were offered forty-six hundred florins, a new carriage, two gray horses, and a set of harness; while somebody else made another bid of twelve acres of land. People went on growing crazier and crazier. A cook mistook a tulip for an onion, cooked it, and ate it; and then, when he found out his mistake, he was so horrified and ashamed that he went out and killed himself. After a while, reason came back, as it usually does after a good deal of harm has been done; many suffered, a few learned a lesson, and Semper Augustus could be bought for fifty florins."

"Don't tell me that the Dutch have no imagination," said Mrs. Bodley. "I have lost some of my ancestral qualities, I am sure, for I never could imagine a tulip to be worth five thousand dollars."

They imagined more than that, Blandina," said her husband.

"They imagined this dry land over which we are traveling." "Was this once water, father," asked Charles, "like the Back Bay in Boston?"

"A good deal more so, Charles. This was the Haarlem Lake, which was only about fourteen feet deep, but covered about seventy-two square miles. They began to drain it in 1840, and were thirteen years about it. I will show you a map of the country as it was in 1575, when we get back to our hotel, and then another one to show you how the Dutch have changed the looks of things."

one time, but the water furnished

"But how did the people get to Amsterdam?"

"They had a causeway at a way, also. They crossed in

boats, and in winter, when it was frozen, they skated across. Indeed, there was a battle on skates between the Dutch and the Spaniards."

In the evening, as they sat in their room overlooking the Dam

rah, Mr. Bodley read aloud to the party, out of Motley's History, the terrible story of the siege of Haarlem.

CHAPTER IX.

THE COUNT'S HEDGE.

THE Bodleys and Van Wycks had lingered at Amsterdam, not only because it gave them a good central point from which to visit Zaandam, Broek, Utrecht, and Haarlem, but because the picture galleries. were full of interesting paintings. The children, even, were never tired of looking for Rembrandt's portraits and historical scenes. They thought they were able to tell his work from that of other artists, and they were shown not only his paintings, but his etchings.