After looking at all these things as long as they wished, Mr. George and Rollo bade the woman good by, and James gave her half a guilder. The party then withdrew.
"Well, uncle George," said Rollo, "and what do you think of that?"
"I think it is a very extraordinary spectacle," said Mr. George. "And it is very curious to think how such a state of things has come about."
"And how has it come about?" asked Rollo.
"Why, here," replied Mr. George, "for a thousand years, for aught I know, the people have been living from generation to generation with no other employment than taking care of the cows that feed on the polders around, and making the milk into cheese. That is a business which requires neatness. Every kind of dairy business does. So that here is a place where a current was set towards neatness a thousand years ago, and it has been running ever since, and this is what it has come to."
Talking in this manner of what they had seen, Mr. George and Rollo returned to the inn, and there they found an excellent breakfast. They were waited upon at the table by the young woman who had so many golden ornaments in her hair; and besides the biftek aux pommes, and the coffee, and the hot milk, and the nice butter, there was the half of one of the round cheeses, such as they had seen in process of making at the dairy.
