g pretensions the same custom frequently
prevails; and we knew a lady who carefully preserved some peacock
feathers in a drawer long after her association with people in a
higher station than that to which she originally belonged had made her
ashamed to display them in her parlour. _This_ could not be for _mere_
ornament: there is some idea of _luck_ attached to them, which seems
not improbably to have arisen from circumstances connected originally
with the "Vow of the Peacock." At any rate, the religious care with
which peacocks' feathers are preserved by many who care not for them
as ornaments, is not a whit more ridiculous than to see people gravely
turn over the money in their pockets when they first hear the cuckoo,
or joyfully fasten a dropped horse-shoe on their threshold, or
shudderingly turn aside if two straws lie across in their path, or
thankfully seize an old shoe accidentally met with, heedless of the
probable state of the beggared foot that may unconsciously have left
it there, or any other of the million unaccountable customs which
diversify and enliven country life, and which still prevail and
flourish, notwithstanding the extensive travels and sweeping
devastations of the modern "schoolmaster."

Do not our readers recollect Cowper's thanksgiving "on finding the
heel of a shoe?"--

"Fortune! I thank thee, gentle goddess! thanks!
Not that my muse, though bashful, shall deny
She would have thanked thee rather, hadst thou cast
A treasure in her way; for neither meed
Of early breakfast, to dispel the fumes
And bowel-raking pains of emptiness,
Nor noontide feast, nor ev'ning's cool repast,
Hopes she from this--presumptuous, though perhaps
The cobbler, leather-carving artist, might.
Nathless she thanks thee, and accepts thy boon,
Whatever; not as erst the fabled cock,
Vain-glorious fool! unknowing what he found,
Spurned the rich gem thou gavest him. Wherefore, ah!
Why not on me that favour, (worthier sure!)
Conferr'dst, goddess! thou art blind, thou sayest:
Enough! thy blindness shall excuse the deed."

Return we to our needlework.

We have clear proof that, before the end of the seventh century, our
fair countrywomen were skilled not merely in the use of the needle as
applied to necessary purposes, but also in its application to the
varied and elegant embroidered garments to which we have so frequently
alluded, as forming properties of