h they live. Below these are the _petite bourgeoisie_,
who are mostly shopkeepers, clerks, and people in various employments.
Last of all are the artisans and working-class people.

It is about the children of the _bonne bourgeoisie_ that I am going to
speak, for they are a very numerous class, and their customs are in
many respects the same as those of most Belgians.

When a child is born, the parents should send to all their friends a
box of _dragees_--that is, sugared almonds or sugar-plums. If the
child is a boy, the box is tied with pink ribbons; and if it is a
girl, with blue. Cards announcing the birth of a child are often sent
nowadays, but the real old Belgian fashion is to send the _dragees_,
and it is a great pity that people are giving it up so much.

The next thing is to find a name for the child, and that is done by
the godmother, who either chooses some family name or calls the child
after its patron saint--that is to say, the saint on whose day it was
born--for in Belgium, as in all Catholic countries, each day is
dedicated to some saint. The commonest name, however, for girls is
Marie, a name given in honour of the Virgin Mary, to whom many baby
girls are devoted from their birth. The mothers of these little girls
vow never to dress them in anything but blue and white till they are
seven years old. When the baby is baptized, the godfather gives a pair
of gloves to the mother and the godmother. Curiously enough, most
Belgian parents would rather have a baby girl than a boy, because a
boy costs more to educate, and also because boys, when they grow up,
have to draw lots for service in the army, and almost every father who
can afford it buys his son off, and that costs money.

There is no nursery life such as we have in England--at least, in very
few Belgian families. Here again money is grudged. People who will
pay high wages for a good cook hire young girls of fourteen or fifteen
to look after their children, and these _bonnes_, as they are called,
are paid very little, and are often careless and stupid. The result is
that the children are constantly with their parents, and, to keep them
quiet, are dreadfully spoilt and petted. It very often happens that,
when a Belgian lady has a friend calling on her, young children, who
ought to be in a nursery, are playing in the drawing-room. Their
mother has no control over them, and if she ventures to tell them to
keep quiet, or to run away, they don't obey her