At Lierre, between Mechlin and Antwerp, a little way off the main line, there is a grand old church, designed by Herman De Waghemakere and completed by his son, with a rood-screen by old Anthony Kelderman, marvellously wrought--a very curious and most beautiful example of decadent Gothic work, with groups of statuary peering out from an intricate web of flamboyant ornament, so fragile and so dainty that it might almost be taken for lace. In this church there is some of the most beautiful old stained glass to be found in Belgium--late, of course, but of its kind, perfect; and there are several other objects reminiscent of the Middle Age. In the town, too, there are vestiges of bygone civic splendour--a city hall much modernised, and a bell tower which dates from 1420 or thereabouts. Thienhoven, or Tirlemont as it is called in French, is a picturesque town on the river Gette, some ten miles beyond Louvain. Here there are three most interesting churches--_Notre-Dame du Lac_, Second Period, with a choir and transepts and a great square tower at the intersection; Saint Germain, partly Romanesque, partly Transition, and with a nave and aisles of the fourteen hundreds, and the old Church of the Béguinage, which dates from the thirteen hundreds. Every lover of mediæval art should visit Léau, also on the Gette, about seven miles down stream. It was once a busy place enough, and is now a dead city, and on that account none the less interesting. The Church of Saint Leonard is a noble structure, with two massive Transition towers at the west end; the choir is First Period, the nave and aisles and transepts date from the fourteen hundreds. Matthew de Layens worked here; he built the baptistery and perhaps, too, some of the side chapels, and designed a richly sculptured reredos for the Lady-Altar. The metal work in this church is curious and beautiful, and there is much of it--brass, iron, copper. It is well worth studying. In the sacristy there is some antique silver--chalices, reliquaries, cruets and the like, and there are one or two good pictures. Or, again, take Aerschot, the little town at the gates of Louvain to which the patricians so often withdrew during their great contest with the plebeians. Here there is a stately parish church, which dates from 1337, and was completed in the following century. An inscription on one of the walls of the choir bears witness to the former fact, and informs us, too, of the architect's name--I. Pickart. Here there are carved oak stalls, a rood screen finely wrought, and, in front of it, a chandelier forged by Quentin Metsys, beneath which lie the bones of his wife, Adelaide van Tuylt. Aerschot is on the high road to Diest, of which town we have already spoken. [Illustration: De Dijk te Mechelen]