ishing-nets.

Previous to the Revolution there was a boarding-school kept in
Philadelphia in Second Street near Walnut, by a Mrs. Sarah Wilson. She
thus advertised:--

"Young ladies may be educated in a genteel manner, and pains taken
to teach them in regard to their behaviour, on reasonable terms.
They may be taught all sorts fine needlework, viz., working on
catgut or flowering muslin, sattin stitch, quince stitch, tent
stitch, cross-stitch, open work, tambour, embroidering curtains or
chairs, writing and cyphering. Likewise waxwork in all its several
branches, never as yet particularly taught here; also how to take
profiles in wax, to make wax flowers and fruits and pin-baskets."

There was no limit to the beauty and delicacy of the embroidery of those
days. I have seen the beautiful needlework cap and skirt worn by
Governor Thomas Johnson of Maryland, when he was christened. The coat of
arms of both the Lux and Johnson families, the name Agnes Lux and Anne
Johnson, and the words "God bless the Babe" are embroidered upon them in
most delicate fairy stitches. The babe grew up to be the governor of his
state in Revolutionary times.

In an old book printed in 1821, a set of rules is given for teaching
needlework, and it is doubtless exactly what had been the method for a
century. The girls were first shown how to turn a hem on a piece of
waste paper; then they proceeded to the various stitches in this order:
to hem, to sew and fell a seam, to draw threads and hemstitch, to gather
and sew on gathers, to make buttonholes, to sew on buttons, to do
herring-bone stitch, to darn, to mark, to tuck, whip, and sew on a
frill. There is also a long and tedious set of questions and answers
like a catechism, explaining the various stitches.

There was one piece of needlework which was done by every little girl
who was carefully brought up: she sewed a sampler. These were worked in
various beautiful and difficult stitches in colored silks and wool on a
strong, loosely woven canvas.

In English collections, the oblong samplers, long and narrow, are as a
rule older than the square samplers; and it is safe to believe the same
of American samplers. Fortunately, many of them are dated, but this
ancient one from the Quincy family has no date. The oldest sampler I
have ever seen is in the collection of antique articles now in Pilgrim
Hall at Plymouth. It was made by a daughter of the Pilgrims. T