Twelve of the nuns carried their dead companion three times round the court before entering the church.

But all that is over, and now they must seek burial elsewhere, without their borders.
One may leave the Begijnenhof by the other passage into Kalverstraat, and walking up that busy street towards the Dam, turn down the St.Lucien Steeg, on the left, to another of Amsterdam's homes of ancient peace--the municipal orphanage, which was once the Convent of St.Lucien.The Dutch are exceedingly kind to their poor, and the orphanages and almshouses (Oudemannen and Oudevrouwen houses as they are called) are very numerous.

The Municipal Orphanage of Amsterdam is among the most interesting; and it is to this refuge that the girls and boys belong whom one sees so often in the streets of the city in curious parti-coloured costume--red and black vertically divided.

The Amsterdamsche burgerweesmeisjes, as the girls are called, make in procession a very pretty and impressive sight--with their white tippets and caps above their dresses of black and red.
This reminds me that one of the most agreeable performances that I saw in any of the Dutch music halls (which are not good, and which are rendered very tedious to English people by reason of the interminable interval called the Pause in the middle of the evening), was a series of folk songs and dances by eight girls known as the Orange Blossoms, dressed in different traditional costumes of the north and south--Friesland, Marken, and Zeeland.

They were quite charming.