as follows:

1. Embroidered pocketbook of black silk with flowers in bright colors.
Former property of Bishop Bigler.

2. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers, date 1800.

3. Embroidered needlebook of white satin with bright flowers and vines,
dated 1786.

4. Sampler, dated 1740.

5. Yellow velvet bag embroidered with ribbon work.

6. Black velvet bag embroidered in crepe work with flowers.

7. White satin workbag embroidered in fine tracery of vines.

8. A box with embroidered pincushion on top.

9. A blue silk pocketbook with very fine ribbon work.

10. A paper box done with needle in filigree.

It will be seen by this list how varied were the forms of needlework
taught at Bethlehem. The crepe work mentioned in No. 6 is, probably
owing to the perishable character of its material, very rare, but was
extremely beautiful in effect. Bits of colored crepe were gathered into
flower petals and sewed upon satin, roses laid leaf upon leaf and built
up to a charming perfection, while the stems and foliage were partially
or wholly embroidered in silk.

The ribbon embroidery of No. 5, has been revived by the New York Society
of Decorative Art and practiced with great success. The flower
embroideries, in the specimens exhibited, were of two sorts--the small
groups being done with fine twisted silks in a simple "over and over"
stitch, called at that time "satin stitch," alike on both sides, except
that on the right side the flowers and leaves were raised from the
surface by an under thread of cotton floss called "stuffing." This did
not prevent, as it might easily have done, an unvarying regularity and
smoothness, which was like satin itself, thread laid beside thread as if
it were woven instead of sewed.

In the larger flowers, the sewing silk had been split into flosses, or
perhaps the prepared flosses were used in the "tent stitch," which is
now known as "Kensington." The colors of all these specimens were as
fresh as natural flowers, speaking eloquently in praise of early
processes of dyeing.

[Illustration: LINEN TOWELS embroidered in cross-stitch. Pennsylvania
Dutch early nineteenth century.

_Courtesy Metropolitan Museum of Art_]

These things seem to fairly exhale gentility, that quality-compact of
everything superior in the life of early American womanhood. I have
especially in mind one cushion where flowers, apparently as fresh in
color as when the cushion was young, are laid upon