e blue; there were spools of every shade of silk; the
spangles were ready; and the twisted wires for the gold lace were in the
crown of a hat which served as a box, with the long fine needles, the
steel pincers, the thimbles, the scissors, and the ball of wax. All
these were on the frame even, or on the material stretched therein,
which was protected by a thick brown paper.

She had threaded a needle with the gold thread. But at the first stitch
it broke, and she was obliged to thread it again, breaking off tiny
bits of the gold, which she threw immediately into the pasteboard
waste-basket which was near her.

"Now at last I am ready," she said, as she finished her first stitch.

Perfect silence followed. Hubert was preparing to stretch some material
on another frame. He had placed the two heavy ends on the chantlate and
the trestle directly opposite in such a way as to take lengthwise the
red silk of the cope, the breadths of which Hubertine had just stitched
together, and fitting the laths into the mortice of the beams, he
fastened them with four little nails. Then, after smoothing the material
many times from right to left, he finished stretching it and tacked on
the nails. To assure himself that it was thoroughly tight and firm, he
tapped on the cloth with his fingers and it sounded like a drum.

Angelique had become a most skilful worker, and the Huberts were
astonished at her cleverness and taste. In addition to what they had
taught her, she carried into all she did her personal enthusiasm, which
gave life to flowers and faith to symbols. Under her hands, silk and
gold seemed animated; the smaller ornaments were full of mystic meaning;
she gave herself up to it entirely, with her imagination constantly
active and her firm belief in the infinitude of the invisible world.

The Diocese of Beaumont had been so charmed with certain pieces of her
embroidery, that a clergyman who was an archaeologist, and another who
was an admirer of pictures, had come to see her, and were in raptures
before her Virgins, which they compared to the simple gracious figures
of the earliest masters. There was the same sincerity, the same
sentiment of the beyond, as if encircled in the minutest perfection of
detail. She had the real gift of design, a miraculous one indeed, which,
without a teacher, with nothing but her evening studies by lamplight,
enabled her often to correct her models, to deviate entirely from them,
and to follow her