IN DUTCH WATER MEADOWS 209 



as in the head-dress of the well-to-do Dutch farmer's 

 wife of to-day. But when family jewels and old lace 

 come into collision with fashion, Greek meets Greek, 

 and neither gives way in a hurry. 



The picturesque polished silver head-plates under 

 the pretty cap of fine lace or blue silk gauze, and gold 

 face-ornaments which may have formed part of the 

 'Ladies' Subscription Fund' towards the cost of 

 flooding the country for the relief of besieged Leyden, 

 or have been buried for safe keeping in the days of 

 ' the Spanish Fury,' are still to be commonly seen in 

 Sunday wear, but scarcely ever now without a vulgar 

 parody of a Paris bonnet of a year ago, like a mocking 

 imp, straddling on the top. 



The blue gauze cap is worn only by Roman 

 Catholics. The same distinction of creeds is marked 

 also by the colour of the awnings of the family 

 carriages, which, with their high carved tail-boards, 

 look like Old World ships placed, stern foremost, on 

 wheels. It is a fairly safe assumption, though less 

 universally true than was once the case, that the 

 farmer's wife and daughters, who look out at one as 

 they drive by from beneath a white hood, are Catholics 

 from beneath a black hood, Protestants. 



But time is short. Almost before we can realise 

 what it is that we have been looking at, another slide 

 is in the lantern. The bright greens and pinks and 

 blues and yellows of the Dutch polders, and the softer 

 tints of the sand-dunes behind, fade on the sheet, to 

 re-arrange themselves in more sombre tones. The 

 o 



