I thought as I stood there how impossible it would be for an English woman tired with the week to sit up like this to clean a shop against the next day.

Sir William Temple has a pleasant story illustrating at once the inherent passion for cleanliness in the Dutch women and also their old masterfulness.

It tells how a magistrate, paying an afternoon call, was received at the door by a stout North Holland lass who, lest he should soil the floor, took him bodily in her arms and carried him to a chair; sat him in it; removed his boots; put a pair of slippers on his feet; and then led him to her mistress's presence.
Bergen-op-Zoom has its place in history; but it is a dull town in fact.

Nor has it beautiful streets, with the exception of that which leads to the old Gevangenpoort with its little painted towers.

I must confess that I did not like Bergen-op-Zoom.