ated
their story to the Emperor Justinian."

"I think it was mean of them!" announced Marie with spirit.

"I'm afraid it was, my child," agreed Father Benedict. "Yet after all
was it quite fair for the Chinese to keep to themselves a thing which it
was for the world's good to know? Was not such a course both narrow and
selfish?"

"Perhaps it was."

"Well, at any rate, the monks were sent back to China with orders to
procure some of the silkworm's eggs. Now this was not an easy task,
because no one was allowed to carry such treasures out of China. Had a
traveler been discovered doing so he would certainly have been killed.
Hence the problem was how to accomplish the feat."

Marie and Pierre edged closer.

"The story goes that the wily monks had some hollow staffs made, and
that inside these they stowed away the precious eggs, departing out of
China in the guise of pilgrims. On their arrival in Rome the eggs were
hatched and the stolen silkworms became the ancestors of all the
silkworms in Europe--perhaps the great-great-great-great-grandparents of
the very ones you are going to raise next week."

The boy and girl laughed merrily.

"The rest of the story is that Emperor Justinian had mulberry trees
planted throughout the Roman Empire and brought to Rome weavers from
Tyre and Berytus. These workmen trained other weavers, and in the
meantime more and more eggs were hatched. All Europe seized upon the
industry. Mulberry trees were planted in Greece and in other countries
where the climate was sufficiently warm to make them grow. From Greece
the trade spread at a later date to Venice, at that time one of the
foremost patrons of the arts. But all the silks made up to this period
were very plain, because it was not until long afterward that
manufacturers learned how to make velvets, satins, and brocades. Then
came a revolution in China, and for the next six hundred years Rome and
Greece had the principal supply of silkworms and the monopoly of the
industry. Was it not fortunate now, Marie, that the Romans had stolen
the secret of making silk?" Pere Benedict pinched her cheek playfully.
"Had they not done so the art might, perhaps, have been lost, as were
so many other of the early arts. Numberless other conquests and wars in
various countries followed. I won't stop to tell you about them; but one
of the good results evolving out of the turmoil was that silk-making
spread to Sicily, Italy, and Spain."

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