A DOG OF FLANDERS. 75

perplexed and troubled the poor old
man, bedridden in his corner, who,
for his part, whenever he had trod-
den the streets of Antwerp, had
thought the daub of blue and red
that they called a Madonna, on the
walls of the wine-shop where he
drank his sou’s worth of black beer,
quite as good as any of the famous
altar-pieces for which the stranger
folk travelled far and wide into Flan-
ders from every land on which the
_ good sun shone. |

There was only one other beside
Patrasche to whom Nello could talk
at all of his daring fantasies. This
other was little Alois, who lived at
the old red mill on the grassy mound,
and whose father, the miller, was the