harm, when at the corners of the narrow, stone-paved
streets shrines of the Virgin and Child might still be seen. The
passing crowds--peasant women in elaborate lace caps and long cloaks,
groups of soldiers, milk carts drawn by dogs--all were intensely
interesting to the newcomers from America, for whom this was the first
foreign experience. The evening of their arrival they hung fascinated
from their windows, listening to the glorious chimes from the
cathedral near by, and watching the changing spectacle below. There
were little tables in the street where soldiers sat drinking, while
maids in huge caps filled their flagons. Isobel remarked: "It is like
a scene in an opera; all we need is music." At that moment a band at
the corner struck up "La Fille de Madame Angot," and the illusion was
complete.

The Hotel du Bien-etre was kept by the Gerhardts, a delightful family
of father, mother, and eleven children. It was a happy time in Antwerp
for the Osbourne children, for this large family of young people
provided them with pleasant companionship.

But if the Osbourne children had a happy time in Antwerp, it was far
otherwise with their mother, for she was alone with her family in a
foreign land and had little money, and the responsibility weighed
heavily upon her, her anxiety being further increased by signs of
ill-health in her youngest child, Hervey. In this state of mind she
was deeply touched by the warm-hearted kindness of the Gerhardts,
which they exhibited in a thousand ways. One day the newspapers
published an account of the failure of a bank in San Francisco, and,
knowing that his guests came from that city, Papa Gerhardt was
troubled lest they might suffer some pecuniary distress from the
failure. Out of the fulness of his good heart he said to Mrs.
Osbourne: "Do not be anxious; it does not matter if you have lost your
money; you can stay with Papa Gerhardt." Fortunately, the bank failure
did not affect her in any way, but the generosity of these good people
in her lonely situation went straight to her heart, and to the end of
her days one only had to be a Belgian to call forth her help and
sympathy.

Finding it necessary to economize, she took a house, a queer little
stone building with a projecting roof, containing four small rooms,
one on top of the other. The rooms were so tiny that when the big
front door stood ajar it opened up almost all the little apartment
dignified by the name of "salon." The entir