350 Hans Brinker

turried out in large numbers. Strangers in the city deemed it
a fine chance to see what was to be seen. Many a peasant
from the northward had wisely chosen the 2oth as the day for
the next city-trading. It seemed that everybody, young and
old, who had wheels, skates or feet at command, had hastened
to the scene.

There were the gentry in their coaches, dressed like Parisians
fresh from the Boulevards; Amsterdam children in charity
uniforms; girls from the Roman Catholic Orphan-House, in
sable gowns and white headbands ; boys from the Burgher Asy-
lum, with their black tights and short-skirted, harlequin coats.!
There were old-fashioned gentlemen in cocked hats and velvet
knee-breeches; old-fashioned ladies, too, in stiff, quilted skirts,
and bodices of dazzling brocade. These were accompanied by
servants bearing foot-stoves and cloaks. There were the peas-
ant-folk arrayed in every possible Dutch costume, —-shy
young rustics in brazen buckles; simple  village-maidens
concealing their flaxen hair under fillets of gold; women whose
long, narrow aprons were stiff with embroidery ; women with
short corkscrew curls hanging over their foreheads; women
with shaved heads and close-fitting caps; and women in striped
skirts and windmill bonnets; men in leather, in homespun, in
velvet and broadcloth; burghers in model European attire,
and burghers in short jackets, wide trousers, and steeple-
crowned hats.

1 This is not said in derision. Both the girls and boys of this institu-
tion wear garments quartered in red and black alternately. By making
the dress thus conspicuous, the children are, in a measure, deterred from
wrong-doing while going about the city. The Burgher Orphan-Asylum
affords a comfortable home to several hundred boys and girls. Holland
is famous for its charitable institutions.