76 A DOG OF FLANDERS.

best-to-do husbandman in all the vil-
lage. Little Alois was only a pretty
baby with soft, round, rosy features,
made lovely by those sweet dark eyes
that the Spanish rule has left in so
many a Flemish face, in testimony of
the Alvan dominion, as Spanish art
has left broadsown throughout the
country majestic palaces and stately
courts, gilded house-fronts and sculp-
tured lintels — histories in blazonry
and poems in stone.

Little Alois was often with Nello
and Patrasche. They played in the
fields; they ran in. the snow; they
gathered the daisies and bilberries ;
they went up to the old gray church
together, and they often sat together
by the broad wood-fire in the mill-