“Ah, no, deary; I never thought of a cap.”
“Well, you must put one on me the minute we get back.”
“Oh, what will father say?” she cried delightedly, as she surveyed herself in the little mirror.
This sobered Marie at once. What would “father” say, indeed? Would he not have a right to be very angry with her, that she had allowed the child to get into such danger?
“Where is Katharine?” asked the colonel, as he stood, tall and commanding, on the threshold, later that evening, surveying eight small Hollanders, looking so much alike, except for the difference in their sizes, that they might have passed for eight Dutch dolls propped up in a row against the wall.
A sudden shriek of laughter, and one of the dolls was in his arms, smothering him with kisses. Then every one began to talk at once, as usual, and it was not until late the next evening, when he and Katharine were steaming out of Amsterdam, that the colonel was told the whole story and for the first time fully understood all that had happened to his little girl on that eventful day.
Meanwhile the new light in his daughter’s eyes and the laughter on her lips kept him from any desire to inquire too deeply into the reason for a certain embarrassed frightened look on the faces of the women.
Before leaving Amsterdam the colonel was obliged to purchase a complete suit of Dutch garments for Katharine as a memento of this visit, and “because they are so pretty, father,” she said, and “oh, father, I just love Holland! As for those Dutch children, I think they are simply the dearest, sweetest things I ever saw, and I have promised to write to Gretel as soon as ever I get to Paris.”
