The guilds have already been mentioned, and the façades of all of the more famous of the guild houses have been carefully restored. These include the Maison des Mesureurs de Blé and the Maison des Francs Bateliers on the Quai aux Herbes, the Maison des Maçons and the Maison des Bateliers non francs. The ancient Grand Boucherie, recently restored, is another interesting "monument." It seems that the Butchers' Guild at Ghent owed its prosperity to the fact that Charles V chanced one day to fall in love with the pretty daughter of a Ghent butcher. This young lady obtained for her son and his descendants an imperial monopoly of the slaughtering and meat-selling business which survived all the various dynastic changes till the French Revolution. The butchers were called _Prinse Kinderen_, or Prince's Children, and seem to have made a very good thing out of the blot on their family escutcheon. Another old edifice is the Maison de l'Etape, or Staple House, a granary dating from the thirteenth century, which stands beside the guild houses on the Quai aux Herbes. In short, the tourist can easily find enough of interest in this rare old Flemish city to occupy many days of leisurely sight-seeing. Ghent, like Bruges, has thus far been spared the destruction that has overtaken so many of the smaller Flemish towns during the war and, as far as is at present known, all of its twenty-nine monuments are still intact. CHAPTER XVII AUDENAERDE AND MARGARET OF PARMA It was on a pleasant morning in June that the Professor and I set forth on a little expedition to the famous town of the tapestry weavers, leaving the ladies to rest and shop at Brussels. The poplar-trees that line the country roads and canals in all parts of Belgium were in full bloom and their light cotton-clad seeds were drifting like snow in every direction. Moreover, contrary to our experience for some time past, the sun seemed likely to shine all day and our old friend J. Pluvius was in complete retreat. Our route lay for a considerable distance through a charming hop country, the plots being much smaller than one sees in Kent or in Central New York State, but very numerous, and, no doubt, aggregating a considerable acreage. Farther along we passed through a superb stretch of hilly country where many of the houses and barns had thatched roofs and were so picturesque, both in themselves and in their surroundings, that we would fain have descended at one of the little stations and spent the day exploring and photographing this charming corner of Flanders. The most beautiful spot of all bore the pretty name of Louise-Marie--the thatch-roofed houses nestling cosily together upon a hillside. This little station, by the way, is on the line from Blaton to Audenaerde (in Flemish Oudenaarde), as we were approaching our destination from the south instead of directly from Brussels. Presently the great tower of Ste. Walburge loomed up ahead on our right, and we could even catch