At last however, I found work nearer home. There was an English congregation in Rotterdam, at present without a pastor. Many of them were poor people who had fled on account of their faith, losing all for the sake of the gospel. I soon got in the way of visiting among them, and finding there were a good many children, I proposed to my uncle with some diffidence—not knowing how he would like it—that I should set up a small school for the little maids, where they could learn to read, sew and spin, and other such arts as should help them to earn a living. I was pleasantly surprised to find him take up the idea with great pleasure, saying that he had often wished some one would do that work. The parents of the children were equally pleased. My uncle found out and furnished a small room, and I discovered a suitable assistant—such a person as we now should call a dame—in an elderly widow without children, a part of whose house we rented for the school. I soon had my rooms full of the little English girls, and there I regularly spent half my day overseeing the work, teaching the little things to read the Scriptures, and now and then moderating a little Dame Webster's zeal for discipline. In this way I spent a not unhappy year, attending to my schools, taking lessons in lace-making and entertaining my uncle and cousins in the evening with music when we had no guests, which was not often, for Avice was in great favor with her husband's large family, and the good folks quickly adopted me as a kinswoman. I learned to talk Dutch pretty fluently, by the simple process of talking right or wrong, and by reading such books as I could lay hands on. My cousin's house was one of the gathering places of the distinguished reformers whereof Holland was full of at that time. They were a wonderful scholarly set of men, and much given to long theological discussions on matters which, it seemed to me, were altogether beyond the scope of human reason. Many times the discussion waxed so warm that I thought it would end in a downright rupture, but all would presently be friends again over the dainty supper dishes which Avice provided on these occasions, and I never saw men enjoy good things more. [Illustration] CHAPTER XIV. ANOTHER HOME. AUGUST had come round again. Such of the Dutch merchants as had places in the country retired to them and passed long hours contemplating their flower beds and their fat cows. For my own part, I liked Rotterdam better since there, at least, we had the fresh sea-breeze. Truth to tell, with all its neatness, Holland is not a savory country in hot weather.