In fact these queer little one-story houses abound in all parts of the city, and the Madame was constantly darting across the roadway to peer within whenever she saw a door ajar. She generally returned highly indignant that any one could think of existing in such narrow quarters. "I'd as soon live in a tomb!" she exclaimed, nodding in the direction of one little house which consisted of one room and only one, being devoid even of the attic room with its customary dormer window. Inside sat an old lady, gazing tranquilly out of doors and doing nothing whatever. Indeed, as the Madame pointed out, there was little enough to do as far as housework was concerned. In the morning everybody in Flanders washes the stone floors of their living-rooms, and frequently the sidewalk and out to the middle of the street as well. This done, the housework for the day is over, except for preparing the meals. We had hoped to see old ladies by the score sitting at the doorways making lace, but on only one street--the rue du Rouleau--did we catch a glimpse of any, and they went indoors as we approached them. It was only the estaminets that we could inspect within. Whenever we found what appeared to be an exceptionally old house that bore the legend "Hier Verkoopt men drank" the Professor and I often used to go in and order a glass of _Vieux système_, simply to get a look at the interior. If, as sometimes happened, mijnheer and his vroue were very accommodating and kind, we summoned the ladies--despite the fact that the sign without appeared to mean "for men only"--and together we explored the old house from garret to cellar. More than once, as we journeyed about among these delightfully old and quaint surroundings, the longing to see some one whose costume would, in a measure, suggest the period when these structures were built came back to us. "Oh!" exclaimed Mrs. Professor, as we sat one afternoon in a particularly cosy corner of one of the oldest interiors we had yet seen, "if two or three knights in armour--or in their lovely costumes of velvet, silk and old lace--would stalk in and sit down at that table over there it would make the picture complete." We found, however, one spot in Bruges, dating from the twelfth century, in which even the costumes were unchanged. This was the Béguinage, close to the Minnewater and the ancient city ramparts--a city of the past where, shut off by high brick walls from the noise and bustle of the outer world, peaceful figures clad in sombre grey and white move noiselessly about as if the big figures on the calendar read 1114 instead of 1914.