very
quietly, and I had the pleasure of watching how admirably adapted
is the Dutch feminine countenance for the display of the nuances
of emotion, the enregistering of every thought. Expression after
expression flitted across her face and mouth like the alternate shadow
and sun in the Weald on a breezy April day. A French woman's many
vivacious and eloquent expressions seem to come from within; but the
Dutch present a placid sensitised surface on which their companions'
conversation records the most delicate tracery. This girl's little
reluctant smiles were very charming, and we were at Bergen-op-Zoom
again before I knew it.

Chapter XIX

Middelburg

The friendly Zeelanders--A Spanish heritage--Deceptive Dutch
towns--The Abbey Hotel--The Abbey of St. Nicholas--Middelburg's
art--Sentimental songs--The great Tacius--The siege of
Middelburg--A round-faced city--When disfigurement is
beauty--Green paint--Long John--Music in the night--Foolish
Betsy--The Stadhuis--An Admiral and stuffed birds--The law
of the paving-stones--Veere--The prey of the sea--A mammoth
church--Maximilian's cup.

With Middelburg I have associated, for charm, Hoorn; but Middelburg
stands first. It is serener, happier, more human; while the nature of
the Zeelander is to the stranger so much more ingratiating than that
of the North Hollander. The Zeelander--and particularly the Walcheren
islander--has the eccentricity to view the stranger as a natural
object rather than a phenomenon. Flushing being avowedly cosmopolitan
does not count, but at Middelburg, the capital of Zeeland, you may,
although the only foreigner there, walk about in the oddest clothes
and receive no embarrassing attentions.

It is not that the good people of Walcheren are quicker to see
where their worldly advantage lies. They are not schemers or
financiers. The reason resides in a native politeness, a heritage,
some have conjectured, from their Spanish forefathers. One sees hints
of Spanish blood also in the exceptional flexibility and good carriage
of the Walcheren women. Whatever the cause of Zeeland's friendliness,
there it is; and in Middelburg the foreigner wanders at ease, almost
as comfortable and self-possessed as if he were in France.

And it is the pleasantest town to wander in, and an astonishingly
large one. A surprising expansiveness, when one begins to explore them,
is an idiosyncrasy of Dutch towns. From the railway, seeing