To the Amsterdam patriciate the yearly visit of the Queen is a social
function full of interest. To the Queen it is more than that; she visits
not only the patricians, she also visits the people, the poor and the
toilers. Of course Amsterdam has its Socialists, and a good many of them,
too, and Socialists are not only fiery but also vociferous republicans as
a rule, who believe that royalty and a queen are a blot upon modern
civilization. But their sentiments, however well uttered, are not popular.
For when 'Our Child,' as the Queen is still frequently called, drives
through the workmen's quarter of Amsterdam, the 'Jordaan' (a corruption of
the French _jardin_), the bunting is plentiful, the cheering and singing
are more so, and the general enthusiasm surpasses both. The 'man in the
street,' that remarkable political genius of the present age, has scarcely
ever wavered in his simple affection for his Prince and Princess of
Orange; and though this affection is personal, not political--for nothing
is political to 'the man in the street'--there it is none the less, and it
does not give way to either reasoning or prejudice.

Such is the external side of Court life. Internally it strikes one as
simple and unaffected. Queen Emma was a lady possessing high
qualifications as a mother and as a ruler. She grasped with undeniable
shrewdness the popular taste and fancy, she had no difficulty in realizing
that her rather easy-going, sometimes blustering, Consort could have
retained a great deal more of his popularity by very simple means, if he
had cared to do so. She did care, so she allowed her little girl to be a
little girl, and she let the people notice it. She went about with her,
all through the country, and the people beheld not two proud princesses,
strutting about in high and mighty manner, but a gracions, kind lady and
an unaffected child. This child showed a genuine interest in sport in
Friesland, in excavations in Maastricht, in ships and quays and docks in