the new generation understood point. These
matters seem to be thought of little consequence nowadays. I have myself
spent months in the study of a special point, and felt myself well
repaid."

She put some searching questions, relative to the qualities of Spanish,
Venice, and Rose point, and nodded her head at each modest but
intelligent answer. Hildegarde blessed her mother and Cousin Wealthy,
who had expounded to her the mysteries of lace. At the end of the
catechism, the old lady sighed and shook her head.

"It is an exceptional thing," she said, "to find any knowledge of laces
in the younger generations. I instructed my own daughters most carefully
in this branch of a gentlewoman's education, but they have not thought
proper to extend the instruction to their own children. I--a shocking
thing happened to me last year!" She paused, and Hildegarde looked up in
sympathy.

"What was it, Aunt Emily?" she asked.

Mrs. Delansing was still silent, lost in distressful reverie. At length,
"It is painful to dwell upon," she said, "and yet these things are a
warning, and it is, perhaps, a duty to communicate them. You have met my
granddaughters, your cousins, Violette and Blanche?"

"Oh, yes!" said Hildegarde, smiling a little, and colouring a little
too. These cousins were rather apt to attempt the city-cousin role, and
to treat her as a country cousin and poor relation. She did not think
they had had the best of it at their last meeting. "Yes, I know them,"
she said, simply.

"They are girls of lively disposition," Mrs. Delansing continued.
"Their mother--your Cousin Amelia--has been something of an invalid,--I
make allowance for all this, and yet there are things--" She broke off;
then, after a moment, went on again. "Violette made me a visit last
winter, here, in this house. She was engaged in what she called fancy
work, for a bazaar (most objectionable things to my mind), that was to
be held in the neighbourhood. One day she came to Hobson--I was unwell
at the time--and said,--Hobson remembers her very words:

"'Oh, Hobson, see what a lovely thing I have made out of a bit of old
rubbishy lace that was in this bureau drawer.'

"Hobson looked, and turned pale to her soul, as she expressed it in her
homely way. She recognised the pattern of the lace.

"'I cut out the flowers,' said the unhappy girl, 'and applied them'--she
_said_ 'appliqued' them, a term which I cannot reproduce--'applied them
to this crimson sati