haps. It would be costly."

"Oh, I should not care for the cost. I want the scarf for a gift; and
it is nothing to me whether I pay ten silver pennies or a hundred."

"Would my Lady suffer her servant to see the scarf she wishes to have
imitated?"

"Fetch it, Levina," said the Countess; "thou knowest which I mean."

Levina brought it, and the pedlar gave it very careful inspection.

"And the alterations?" he asked.

"I would have a row of silver harebells and green ferns, touched with
gold, as an outer border," explained the Countess: "and instead of those
ornaments in the inner part, I would have golden scrolls, worked with
the words `Dieu et mon droit' in scarlet."

The pedlar shook his head. "The golden scrolls with the words can be
done, without difficulty. But I must in all humility represent to my
Lady that the flowers and leaves she desires cannot."

"Why?" asked the Countess in a surprised tone.

"Not in this work," answered the pedlar. "In this style of
embroidery"--and he took another scarf from his pack--"it could be
wrought: but not in the other."

"But that is not to be compared with the other!"

"My Lady has well said," returned the pedlar with a smile.

"But I do not understand where the difficulty lies?" said the Countess,
evidently disappointed.

"Let my Lady pardon her servant. We have in our company--nay, there is
in all England--one broideress only, who can work in this style. And I
dare not make such an engagement on her behalf."

"Still I cannot understand for what reason?"

"Lady, these flowers, leaves, heads, and such representations of created
things, are the work of Christian hands. That broidery which my Lady
desires is not so."

"But why cannot Christians work this broidery?"

"Ha! They do not. My Lady's servant cannot speak further."

"Then what is she who alone can do this work? What eyes and fingers she
must have!"

"She is my daughter," answered the pedlar, rather proudly.

"But I am sure the woman who can broider like this, is clever enough to
make a row of harebells and ferns!"

"Clever enough,--oh yes! But--she could not do it."

"`Clever enough,' but `could not do it'--old man, I cannot understand
thee."

"Lady, she would account it sin to imitate created things."

The Countess looked up with undisguised amazement.

"Why?"

"Because the Holy One has forbidden us to make to ourselves any likeness
of that which is in heaven above, or in the e