We spent a very charming afternoon visiting the Grande Béguinage. Passing through the lofty gateway we were greeted by the pleasant-faced Béguine who receives all visitors and who directed us how to reach the buildings we were permitted to see. As at Bruges, the cells were not shown to visitors. Altogether at St. Amand there are fourteen "convents" and eighty houses, the former accommodating twenty or thirty inmates and the latter two or three, with occasionally some lady from the outer world who is taken as a lodger. Each little house is numbered and also has a name, usually that of some saint. Arriving at the convent we had been permitted to visit we were first conducted down a long, clean corridor, painted a glaring white, to a parlour or reception room, of which there appear to be several. Then, after the Lady Superior had been notified of our presence and had come to welcome us, we were taken to the _refter_, or dining-room. The inventor of the kitchen cabinet could have taken points from this curious apartment. Along the walls and between the windows are a dozen or more cupboards, of which one belongs to each Béguine. Here she keeps her napkins, dishes and cooking utensils, and even her bread and provisions. A board can be pulled out near the middle, which serves as a table. These cupboards are so constructed that no Béguine can see into that of her neighbour, and apparently they take their meals one at a time, as one was eating her frugal repast when we entered, and when we passed through the room again a little later her little private refectory was closed and another one was seated at her little shelf or table. Adjoining this queer dining-room was a large kitchen, with an extremely big cook stove, on which a half-dozen little pots were simmering gently. One Béguine, we were told, has the duty of attending to the kitchen for three weeks, then another, each taking turns. The Béguines prepare their own meals to suit themselves, the one in charge of the kitchen merely looking after the actual process of cooking. We next visited the workroom, where a group of Béguines were busily engaged in making lace. The bright sunshine streaming through the large windows on the silent group of workers, each clad in her sombre garb of black and white, made a pretty picture. All seemed to be care-free and contented, though the expression on their faces could hardly be described as one of happiness. As in all conventual institutions, the inmates are required to go through quite a series of devotional exercises from morning mass to the Benediction Night Prayers. The scene in the little chapel attached to each convent, or in the large chapel of the entire Béguinage, when the sisters are assembled for service is a very picturesque one and gives the visitor an impression likely long to be remembered.