ur according to their nationalities. Black and white
for Germany; black and yellow for Austria; the tricolour for France;
scarlet for Spain; blue and white for Portugal; and black and yellow
for Belgium.

The word cockade, according to a well-known authority, was borrowed from
the French _cocarde_, having originally been applied to the plumes of
cock's feathers worn by Croatian soldiers serving in the French army.
Some such plume, or in its place a bunch of ribbons, came to be used in
pinning up the flaps of the hat into a cocked position, and thus
gradually the word passed for the name of the "cocked" hat itself.

CHAPTER XXXV

COUNTRY-HOUSE VISITS

September is actually the commencement of the country visiting season,
the few visits that are paid in August are but a prelude to the
programme that is to follow during the succeeding five months.

* * * * *

=The visitors received in August= are principally relatives. The
exceptions to the August family parties are the August cricket parties
in the counties where cricket is made a great feature during that month,
where the cricket weeks and consequent large country-house parties are
of annual recurrence, and where balls and private theatricals form part
of the week's amusement. It often follows that people visit at the same
houses year after year, they arrange their tour of visits with regard to
those invitations which they annually receive; new acquaintances and new
houses whereat to visit are added to the list from time to time and take
the place of those which, as a matter of course, drop out of it.
Sometimes the invitations fit into each other admirably, like the pieces
of a puzzle; at others there is an awkward interval of a day, or two or
three days, to be filled up between leaving one house and arriving at
another. If the hostess is, in either case, a relation or an intimate
friend, this difficulty is easily surmounted by staying on at one house
until the day fixed for arrival at another, or _vice versa_; but if a
guest is on ceremony with her hostess, or if, as is often the case, new
arrivals are expected for the following week, the alternative is to
spend a few days in town, as although the house where the next visit to
be paid might be within twenty or thirty miles of the house the visitor
is about to leave, it would be unusual to spend the interval at an hotel
in the adjacent town, as to do so might reflect upon the