Such are the men who come together in this elegant and yet homely sitting-room; each of them a leader in his profession, each of them coming in daily and close contact with all sorts and conditions of men and women in the town, and enabled by their wide and unbiassed views of humanity and human affairaffairsntrol them and to divert the common energies in wise paths. The 'Heptarchy' has, of course, no legal standing as such, but from their conversations one understands the influence which its members wield by their intellectual and moral superiority. They conspire in no way to attain certain ends, but discuss things as intimately as only brothers or man and wife can discuss them, in the genial intimacy of their unselfish friendship. They generally agree on the lines to be taken in certain matters, but even if they fail to agree, this does not prevent them from acting according to their own rights, still respecting each other's convictions and preferences. And not only local topics are discussed in the meetings of the 'Heptarchy,' for politics, art, trade, and science, foreign and Dutch, come within their scope; for their intellectual outlook, like their sympathies, is universal. Towards eleven o'clock we take leave of each other. Walraven, Hendriks, and ourselves go to the ball at the house of the 'Commissaris der Koningin' (Queen's Commissioner), the Lord-Lieutenant of the county, Baron Alma van Strae. Baron and Baroness Alma live in a palatial mansion, and we find the huge reception and drawing rooms full of a gay crowd of young folk. The rooms are beautifully decorated, there is a profusion of flowers and palms in the halls and on the stairs; and a host of footmen in bright-buttoned, buff-coloured livery coats, short trousers, and white stockings, move quietly about, betraying the well-trained instincts of hereditary lackeydom. There are county councillors, judges, officers of army and navy, bankers, merchants, manufacturers, town councillors, the mayor and town clerk, the president and some members of the Chamber of Commerce, and committee-men of orphanages and homes for old people. All have brought their wives, daughters, and sons to do the dancing, for though they occasionally join themselves, they prefer to indulge in a quiet game of whist or to settle down in Baron Alma's smoking and billiard room for a cigar. These social fonctions, however, are much the same in Holland as in other countries. Etiquette may differ in small details, but on the whole the world of society lives the same life, cultivates the same interests, and amuses or bores itself in much the same fashion. It is _tout comme chez nous_ in this as in nearly everything else.