anticipative kiss given to the tips of the
fingers, the graceful professional attitude,
the dignified thanks, the complacent smile to
show approbation of your benevolent conduct,
are well worth any trifle you may bestow—
they convert it into money fairly earned.
The Bruges beggars raise beggary to the
dignity of one of the fine arts. They take to
begging with the determination to excel,
which we admire when Talmas and
Macreadys take to acting. Your dole is the
reward of merit, rather than the subsidy to
want. A female veteran, to whom a single
centime was given, as a psychological experiment,
was too well-bred to break out into
abuse of the niggardly donor, as a common-
place beggar would have done, but took it as
quietly as if it had been a double-sou piece.
Many and many of the Flemish beggars do
not look upon the alms you give them exactly
as a gratuitous offering. One good turn, they
think, deserves another, and they contrive to
do it in their way. They firmly entertain, as
an article of faith, the belief that the voice of
the poor in behalf of the rich has special influence.
In a Flemish cathedral, a woman once
begged me to give her something, not for
herself, she said, but for another poor woman, who
had just been confined, and who had not bread
to eat; she would pray the Bon Dieu for me.
I gave her four sous which, she received
thankfully, and immediately set about
performing her part of the bargain. The two-
pennyworth of prayers were commenced and
concluded in my presence, that I might see
she had not cheated me; and I left the
church by so much richer and lighter than I
had entered it. I like, too, independent of
economic reasons, the trifling and even
infinitesimal alms habitually given by many—
themselves indigent—to beggars, such as even
a single raw potato. Half-a-dozen potatoes
so obtained would prevent death from actual
starvation.

It is Sunday morning, bright and warm.
The streets are busy and bustling; the front
parlours are gay with clean curtains, fresh
flowers, and pot-plants, some of which, of
trailing habit, are grown suspended in large
sea-shells. The maid-servants look out of
window with inquisitive and shining faces.
The large irregular square, Grande Place, is
hung all round with thick-clustered flags
of the Belgian tricolor, with its somewhat
sombre and ominous combination of black,
yellow, and red, so different to the gaiety
expressed by the bright French tricolor—
blue, white, and red. The draped and
crowned statuettes of the Virgin and Child
behind the lamps at the corners of the streets,
look all the fresher in their faded finery for
having had the glass before them polished
clean. Smartly-dressed people are taking
their places at balconies and windows, which
latter are illuminated with lighted candles,
whose insignificance is made apparent by the
brilliant sunshine outside. The members of
the Café Société, or Club, have mustered
strong under the awning in front of their
billiard-room. On one side of the square
rises the belfry—a marvel of brick and
stone masonry, as are several other towers in
Bruges—and from its airy summit, the
famous chimes send forth an almost continual
shower of notes, filling the atmosphere with
the music of bells. Are there any chimes
in Europe superior to those of Bruges?
Compared with them, the carillon of Dunkerque
is no more than a tinkling cymbal, a thin-
voiced harpsichord. Round a corner, comes a
little girl clad in white muslin from top to
toe, with a flowing veil and a wreath of
flowers. She is accompanied by, I suppose,
her brother: a pretty boy with well-curled
flaxen hair, in a skin-tight pink silk dress,
with a sheep-skin picturesquely wrapped
about his chest and loins. He is the
representative of St. John the Baptist. They
are followed by a servant bearing in his arms
a lamb, decked out with bright pink ribbons.
They are going to their rendezvous at the
cathedral. For, to-day is the fête of St. Sacrament,
and they are to take part in the solemn
show.

At various conspicuous points about the
town, temporary altars, reposoirs, or
reposing-places (for the host) have been erected
and adorned with scenic columns, angels,
pictures, flowers, candlesticks, steps, carpets,
and green branches. Near one of these, close
to a convenient corner, we will stop to see the
procession pass, especially as an obliging
shop-keeper offers a chair for mademoiselle
to stand on, and raise herself above the
shoulders and heads of the crowd. The
Theatre of the Passion, in the fair close by,
under the direction of Messrs. John Klepsken,
professors of jimnastic (sic), have ceased
their performances, to resume them as soon
as the pious band of town-pilgrims have
defiled out of sight into the opposite street.
The great bell also, in the Babelian belfry,
which requires the united strength of ten
able-bodied men to make it utter a sound, is
booming away with all its might, bellowing
forth a deep metallic roar which, you can
feel, communicates its vibration to something
within you, while the chimes scatter forth
their fragments of tune with an irregularity
which gives something of the wildness of an
orgie to this out-door religious ceremony. But,
hush! Here are the handsome cuirassiers on
coal-black steeds; and here comes the band
of mounted musicians on milk-white ditto, to
mark the contrast between harmony and
slaughter. There are files of little orphan-
children reading their prayer-books and
dressed in the costume of three hundred
years ago. There are large silver lanterns
with lighted tapers on tall poles, stretching
out of the stomach-girdles of surpliced
beadles. I long for one of those silver
lanterns to serve me as a hall-lamp in my
heretical home. There are parties of priests