town; and the Sieur de Bierbecque, and Jehan Pinnock, and Jehan Dymaerzelle, etc., etc., etc.; bailiffs, aldermen, burgomasters; burgomasters, aldermen, bailiffs — all stiff, affectedly grave, formal, dressed out in velvet and damask, hooded with caps of black velvet, with great tufts of Cyprus gold thread; good Flemish heads, after all, severe and worthy faces, of the family which Rembrandt makes to stand out so strong and grave from the black background of his “Night Patrol “; personages all of whom bore, written on their brows, that Maximilian of Austria had done well in “trusting implicitly,” as the manifest ran, “in their sense, valor, experience, loyalty, and good wisdom.”

There was one exception, however.

It was a subtle, intelligent,