der bellowing caves,
Beneath the windy wall.'

'Or sweet Europa's mantle blew unclasped,
From off her shoulder backward borne:
From one hand drooped a crocus: one hand grasped
The mild bull's golden horn.'

And so forth, and so on. I continued my citations in order to keep
Madam's mouth shut; for she annoyed me exceedingly by telling everybody
she had occasion to speak with who she was.

"'_Je suis Madame Waldoborough; et je desire savoir_' this thing, or
that,--whatever she wished to inquire about; as if all the world knew of
her fame, and she had only to state, 'I am that distinguished
personage,' in order to command the utmost deference and respect.

"From the show-rooms we passed on to the work-rooms, where we found the
patient weavers sitting or standing at the back side of their pieces,
with their baskets of many-colored spools at their sides, and the
paintings they were copying behind them, slowly building up their
imitative fabrics, loop after loop, and stitch after stitch, by hand.
Madam told the workmen who she was, and learned that one had been at
work six months on his picture; it was a female figure kneeling to a
colossal pair of legs, destined to support a warrior, whose upper
proportions waited to be drawn out of the spool-baskets. Another had
been a year at work on a headless Virgin with a babe in her arms,
finished only to the eyes. Sometimes ten, or even twenty years, are
expended by one man upon a single piece of tapestry; but the patience of
the workmen is not more wonderful than the art with which they select
and blend their colors, passing from the softest to the most brilliant
shades, without fault, as the work they are copying requires.

"From the tapestry-weaving we passed on to the carpet-weaving rooms,
where the workmen have the right side of their fabric before them, and
the designs to be copied over their heads. Some of the patterns were of
the most gorgeous description,--vines, scrolls, flowers, birds, lions,
men; and the way they passed from the reflecting brain through the
fingers of the weaver into the woollen texture was marvellous to behold.
I could have spent some hours in the establishment pleasantly enough,
watching the operatives, but for that terrible annoyance, the dog in my
arms. I could not put him down, and I could not ask the ladies to take
him. The Spider was in her element; she forgot everything but the toil
of her fellow-spiders, and it