th fresh
sand, led into a large court-yard paved with smooth square stones of
a greenish color. On the left were the linen-rooms, kitchens, and
servants' hall; to the right, the wood-house, coal-house, and offices,
whose doors, walls, and windows were decorated with designs kept
exquisitely clean. The daylight, threading its way between four red
walls chequered with white lines, caught rosy tints and reflections
which gave a mysterious grace and fantastic appearance to faces, and
even to trifling details.

A second house, exactly like the building on the street, and called in
Flanders the "back-quarter," stood at the farther end of the court-yard,
and was used exclusively as the family dwelling. The first room on the
ground-floor was a parlor, lighted by two windows on the court-yard,
and two more looking out upon a garden which was of the same size as the
house. Two glass doors, placed exactly opposite to each other, led at
one end of the room to the garden, at the other to the court-yard, and
were in line with the archway and the street door; so that a visitor
entering the latter could see through to the greenery which draped the
lower end of the garden. The front building, which was reserved for
receptions and the lodging-rooms of guests, held many objects of art and
accumulated wealth, but none of them equalled in the eyes of a Claes,
nor indeed in the judgment of a connoisseur, the treasures contained in
the parlor, where for over two centuries the family life had glided on.

The Claes who died for the liberties of Ghent, and who might in these
days be thought a mere ordinary craftsman if the historian omitted to
say that he possessed over forty thousand silver marks, obtained by
the manufacture of sail-cloth for the all-powerful Venetian navy,--this
Claes had a friend in the famous sculptor in wood, Van Huysum of Bruges.
The artist had dipped many a time into the purse of the rich craftsman.
Some time before the rebellion of the men of Ghent, Van Huysum, grown
rich himself, had secretly carved for his friend a wall-decoration in
ebony, representing the chief scenes in the life of Van Artevelde,--that
brewer of Ghent who, for a brief hour, was King of Flanders. This
wall-covering, of which there were no less than sixty panels, contained
about fourteen hundred principal figures, and was held to be Van
Huysum's masterpiece. The officer appointed to guard the burghers
whom Charles V. determined to hang when he re-ent