school climax of glory of Miss Hannah Otis, sister of the patriot James Otis. It is a view of the Hancock House, Boston Common, and vicinity, as they appeared from 1755 to 1760. Across its expanse Governor Hancock rides triumphantly; and the fair maid looking over the garden wall at the Charles River is Dorothy Quincy, afterwards Madam Hancock. This triumph of school-girl affection and needle-craft, wholly devoid of perspective or proportion, made a great sensation in Boston, in its day.

Another large piece of similar work is here represented. The original is in the library of the American Antiquarian Society at Worcester, Massachusetts. It is a view of the Old South Church, Boston; and with its hooped dames and coach and footman, has a certain value as indicating the costume of the times. It is dated 1756.

Familiar to the descendants of old New England families, are the embroidered mourning pieces. These are seldom more than a century old. On them weeping willows and urns, tombs and mourning figures, names of departed friends with dates of their deaths, and epitaphs were worked with vast skill, and were so much admired and were such a delightful home decoration, that it is no unusual thing to find these elaborate memento moris with

empty spaces for names and dates, waiting for some one to die, and still unfilled, unfinished, blankly commemorative of no one, while the industrious embroiderer has long since gone to the tomb she so deftly and eagerly pictured, and her name, too, is forgotten.

Tambour work was a favorite form of embroidIn 1788 Madam Hesselius wrote thus in jest

ery.

of her daughter, a Philadelphia miss : —

“To tambour on crape she has a great passion,
Because here of late it has been much the fashion.

The shades are dis-sorted, the spangles are scattered
And for want of due care the crape

has got tattered."

Tambouring with various stitches on different kinds of net made pretty laces; and these were apparently the laces usually worked and worn. In the form of rich veils and collars scores of intricate and beautiful stitches were used, and exquisite articles of wear were manufactured.

A strip of net footing pinned and sewn to paper, with reels of fine linen thread and threaded needle attached, is shown in the accompanying illustration just as it was left by the deft and industrious hands that have been folded for a century in the dust. The pattern and stitches in this design are simple ; the design was first pricked in outline with a pin,

then worked in. Other stitches and patterns, none of them the most elaborate and difficult, are shown in the infant's cap and collars, and the strips of lace and "modesty-piece."

In the seventeenth century lace-making with

bobbins was taught; it is referred to in Judge Sewall's diary; and a friend has shown me the cushion and bobbins used by her far-away grandmother who learned the various stitches in London at a guinea a stitch.

The feminine love of color, the longing for decoration, as well as pride in skill of needle-craft, found riotous expansion in quilt-piecing. A thrifty econ