"Look! here in the corner are some of the very same foot-stoves that our grandparents used to take to the meeting-house in the winter." To be sure, there was a little pile of these quaint stoves, not a whit different from what they had often seen in America. "The Dutch must have brought these to New Amsterdam," said Mrs. Bodley.

"I don't know if they are English, also," said her husband; “but

our New England ancestors certainly had them. It is possible that they brought them from Holland."

Their walk along the principal thoroughfare of Leyden showed them the ancient Town Hall, with its curious inscription.

"What does the Dutch mean, father?" asked Charles. "You have the guide-book."

"It means,' When the black famine had brought to the death nearly six thousand persons, then God the Lord repented of it, and gave us bread again, as much

as we could wish,' and the letters of the inscription tell the year of

"The capitals tell the date. You are to count the W's as two

You have to

V's; the M, of course, is a thousand; the C's are a hundred each; the L's are fifty; the V's are five; and the I's one. add them all together, to make 1574. Then the letters, small and large, count one each, and make 131 in all, the number of days that the siege lasted."

"I mean to try it now," said Charles, planting himself resolutely on the opposite side of the street, and beginning to count.

"Oh, come, you'll never satisfy yourself," said his father. "You can't make out the inscription in the stone. But we have it in the guide-book, and you can count it there." So the procession moved on, and came to a halt, finally, at a big mound near the middle of the town, called the Burg, and attached to a hotel where they were to lunch.

"This is a place of unknown antiquity," said Mr. Van Wyck. "Nobody seems to know much about it. This circular wall of stone is most of it very modern, but it is claimed that something remains from the tenth century."

"It seems to be a vast round tower," said his wife," without any roof to it; or, perhaps, an old circus."

"It is sufficiently uninteresting," said Mr. Bodley; "but it is shady, and I'd like to sit down a while."

"And I want to count those letters," said Charles. So he and Sarah took the book between them, and, after making various calculations and disputing sturdily, they made the letters tell the story which they professed to tell. Here is the Dutch inscription, the English translation of which Mr. Bodley had read, and an ingenious enigma it is.

66

nae sWarte hVngernoot gebraCht had tot de doot bInaest zes d VIzent Menschen, a Ls't god den heer Verdroot gaf hI Vns Weder broot, zo VeeL WI CVnsten WensChen."

"The Town Hall must have been built after the siege," said Charles.

"Why?"

"Because the inscription could n't have been made before the siege."

"No; but it might have been set in the wall of a building which was standing at the time of the siege. As a matter of fact," said his father, "I believe the Town Hall was standing at the time, having been recently built, and that the inscription was added as a memorial of the siege. This Burg where we are was one of the places to which the people came, during that terrible siege of Leyden, to look off for help toward the ocean. The tower of St. Pancras, yonder, was another lookout."

"What a siege it was," said Mr. Van Wyck, "when the inhabitants ate dogs and cats, chopped and boiled the hides of animals, and stripped the trees of their leaves; and what a sense it gives us of their terror of the Spaniard, when they endured all the torture of famine rather than expose themselves to his tender mercy!"

"It was more than terror of the Spaniard, Philip," said Mr Bodley; "it was an undying love of their country and their faith. I don't think there is a sublimer picture of heroism than in the double scenes within and without the city, when the inhabitants were starving, and when the Prince of Orange and the States-General determined to cut the dikes, drown out the country between Leyden and the sea, and thus make a way for the fleet to come to the city. What a night that last night of the siege was, when the burgomaster stood where we are, with a few of the famished men of Leyden, looked toward the fort of Lammen, over yonder, knew that the fleet lay behind the fort, and made a desperate resolve to rush out at

dawn and surprise the fort; and then, after the pitchy dark night, to find that the Spaniards had actually fled from the fort, and there was nothing to hinder the fleet, which sailed up to the quays."

"I wish we could see the place where the boats came in," said Charles.

"You shall," said his father; and before they left the city they visited the lock of the canal through which the relieving fleet had passed, though the place had of course been modernized. And in their hotel, in the evening, besides reading of the queer pageant by which the ceremony of founding the University was endowed, they read the touching words of Motley which describe the scene after the relief of the city:

"The quays were lined with the famishing population, as the fleet rowed through the canals, every human being who could stand coming forth to greet the preservers of the city. Bread was thrown from every vessel among the crowd. The poor creatures, who for The two months had tasted no wholesome human food, and who had literally been living within the jaws of death, snatched eagerly the blessed gift, at last too liberally bestowed. Many choked themselves to death in the greediness with which they devoured their bread; others became ill with the effects of plenty thus suddenly succeeding starvation; but these were isolated cases, a repetition of which was prevented. The admiral, stepping ashore, was welcomed by the magistracy, and a solemn procession was immediately formed. Magistrates and citizens, wild Zealanders, emaciated burgher guards, sailors, soldiers, women, children, nearly every living person within the walls, all repaired without delay to the great church, stout Admiral Boisot leading the way. The starving and heroic city, which had been so firm in its resistance to an earthly king,

now bent itself in humble gratitude before the King of kings. After prayers, the whole vast congregation joined in the thanksgiving hymn. Thousands of voices raised the song, but few were able to carry it to its conclusion, for the universal emotion, deepened by the music, became too full for utterance. The hymn was abruptly suspended, while the multitude wept like children."

"NATHAN," said his wife one day, "I really think our china-closet needs replenishing, and since we are so near Delft, why not go there and buy a few cups and saucers?

"We should have gone last century, Blandina, if we wanted the