[Illustration: A Farmhouse Interior, Showing the Door into the Stable.]

All the Frisian costumes are beautiful. Many ladies of that province still
wear the national dress, and a very becoming one it is.

In Overyssel the women all over the province dress alike and in the same
way their ancestors did. In the house the dress is an ordinary full
petticoat of some cotton stuff, generally blue, and a tight-fitting and
perfectly plain bodice with short sleeves, a red handkerchief folded
across the chest, and a close-fitting white cap, with a little flounce
round the neck. When they go to market with their milk and eggs they are
very smart.[Footnote: Butter used to be one of the wares they took to
market, but now so many butter-factories have arisen, and also so much is
imported from Australia, that it is hardly worth their while to make it.]

They then wear a fine black merino skirt, made very full, and the
inevitable petticoats, which make the skirt stand out like a crinoline. On
Sundays they wear the same costume as on market-days, and in winter they
are to be seen with large Indian shawls worn in a point down the back in
the old-fashioned way. When they go to communion, as they do four times a
year, the shawls are of black silk with long black fringes. The hair is
completely hidden by a close-fitting black cap, and some women cut off
their hair so as to give the head a perfectly round shape. Over the black
cap is worn a white one of real lace, called a 'knipmuts,' the pattern of
which shows to advantage over the black ground. A deep flounce of gauffred
real lace goes round the neck, while round the face there is a ruche or
frill, also very finely gauffred. A broad white brocaded ribbon is laid
twice round the cap, and fastened under the chin. Long gold earrings are
fastened to the cap on either side of the face, and the ears themselves