There was a breathless silence.
Mr. and Mrs. Hyde were very much annoyed, and the children were alarmed for the safety of their pet.
While they were momentarily expecting a scream of terror from the occupant of the room, Froll reappeared at the window, and, with a grin and chatter of defiance, tumbled out, and clambered down towards the children, with a pair of gold-rimmed eye-glasses in her hand. A night-capped head, thrust out after her, was withdrawn again hastily, as its owner’s eyes encountered those of Mrs. Hyde.
Saucy Froll perched herself upon the top of the parlor blind, stuck the glasses upon her nose, and peered down at the children, who greeted this manœuvre with an irresistible burst of laughter, in which their father and mother joined.
The owner of the glasses again thrust his head out at the window, minus the nightcap this time, and seeing the monkey, laughed as heartily as the others.
Leaning forward, he could reach the chain, which he caught; and then Froll was made to surrender her plunder; after which she was committed to her cage in disgrace.
The sail on the lake was delightful. The water was as smooth as glass, the air fresh and cool, and the little island in the lake’s centre was crowded with song birds, whose sweet, merry notes rang musically over the water, and were echoed back from the shore.
After breakfast they prepared to visit the places of interest in “Gravenhaag.”
Mr. Hyde led the way to the National Museum, occupying the Prince Maurice palace—an elegant building of the seventeenth century. Numerous guides offered their services, and when one had been engaged, our party followed him up a broad, solid stairway to the famous picture gallery. Most of the paintings were old pieces of the German masters, and did not interest the children so much as their parents, for they were too young to appreciate them. But in one of the rooms almost entirely covering one end, was a grand picture, so vivid and natural that Nettie was quite startled by it at first. It was a picture of a young bull spotted white and brown, a cow lazily resting on the grass before it, a few sheep in different attitudes, and an aged cowherd leaning upon a fence. The background of the picture was a distant landscape, and all the objects were life-size.
“That picture is Paul Potter’s Bull—a highly prized work of art,” said Mr. Hyde. “When the French invaded Holland, Napoleon ordered it to Paris, to be hung in the Louvre.”