I knocked at the door, and the master of the house opened it. He read the letter which I gave him, regarded me critically, and bade me enter. It is almost always thus. At the first meeting the Dutch are apt to be suspicious. We open our arms to any one who brings us a letter of introduction as if he were our most intimate friend, and very often do nothing for him afterward. The Dutch, on the contrary, receive you coldly--so coldly, indeed, that sometimes you feel mortified--but afterward they do a thousand things for you with the best will in the world, and without the least appearance of doing you a kindness. Within, the house was in perfect harmony with its outside appearance; it seemed to be the inside of a ship. A circular wooden staircase, shining like polished ebony, led to the upper rooms. There were mats and carpets on the stairs, in front of the doors, and on the floors. The rooms were as small as cells, the furniture was as clean as possible, the door-plates, the knobs, the nails, the brass and the other metal ornaments were as bright as if they had just left the hands of the burnisher. Everywhere there was a profusion of porcelain vases, of cups, lamps, mirrors, small pictures, bureaus, cupboards, knicknacks, and small objects of every shape and for every use. All were marvellously clean, and bespoke the thousand little wants that the love of a sedentary life creates--the careful foresight, the continual care, the taste for little things, the love of order, the economy of space; in short, it was the abode of a quiet, domestic woman. The goddess of this temple, who could not or did not dare speak French, was hidden in some inmost recess which I did not succeed in discovering. We went down stairs to see the kitchen; it was one gleam of brightness. When I returned home I described it, in my mother's presence, to the servant who prided herself on her cleanliness, and she was annihilated. The walls were as white as snow; the saucepans reflected everything like so many looking-glasses; the top of the chimney-piece was ornamented by a sort of muslin curtain like the curtains of a bed, bearing no trace of smoke; the wall below the chimney was covered with square majolica tiles which were as clean as though the fire had never been lighted; the andirons, shovel, and tongs, the chain of the spit, all seemed to be of burnished steel. A lady dressed for a ball could have gone round the room and into all the corners and touched everything without getting a speck of dirt on her spotless attire.