colored and bannered
pomp of duke and noble.

It was all mightily picturesque, with its contrasts of gorgeousness and
privation, but probably Matilda the dexterous thought that times were
good enough when she could sit in safety, surrounded by her maids and
priests, and write her royal journal as she pleased, with a threaded
stylus; and well for us that she elected to do this, although her
records are written in so quaint a fashion that amusement and interest
are twin spectators of the result.

Two borders, upper and lower, remind one irresistibly of a child's
processional picture on a slate. The figures are done in outline only,
colors corresponding to those used in the body of the work. Each border
is some six inches wide, and has the air of a little running commentary
or enlargement of the main story. There are variations and incidents
which could not perhaps be put down in the main body, where all the
figures are worked solidly in the stitch which has been rechristened
"Kensington stitch." The horses are worked in red-brown and gray
crewels, some of them duly spotted and dappled, the banners and
gonfalons carefully wrought in the colors and devices belonging to them.
The whole work follows scrupulously the scenes of the Conquest, giving
the lives of the actors both in Normandy and England, as well as the
transit from one country to the other.

The first scene evidently represents Edward the Confessor giving
audience to Harold, the last of the Saxon kings. The next gives the
embarkation of Harold, and the third his capture in France.

Then comes the death of Edward, and the tapestry story struggles
ineffectually with the incidents of his death and funeral; and the
election of Harold as King of England, showing him seated crowned and in
royal robes under a very primitive canopy. After this, the scene shifts
again to France, and portrays the preparations for invasion made by the
Duke of Normandy, who was called by the people of the country he invaded
"William the Conqueror," and who have continued to know him only by that
name through all succeeding centuries, the shame and sorrow of
vanquishment quite buried under the glory of the performance, Saxon and
Norman uniting in esteem of the successful result.

All this history is duly set forth in archaic simplicity by the stitches
of Queen Matilda, who, in preserving the record of the deeds of her
doughty lord, has set down also a record of herself as the ideal wife,