al to
edge each hanging with a tape of monotone, a woven galloon of quiet
hue, which had two purposes; one, to finish neatly the work, as the
housewife hems a napkin; the other, to provide space of simple
material for hanging on rude hooks the big pictured surface.

This latter consideration was one of no small importance, as we can
readily see by sending the thought back to the time when tapestries
led a very different life (so human they seem in their association
with men that the expression must be allowed) from that of to-day,
when they are secured to stretchers, or lined, or even framed behind
glass like an easel painting.

In those other times of romance and chivalry a great man's tapestries
were always en route. Like their owner, they were continually going on
long marches, nor were they allowed to rest long in one place. From
the familiar castle walls they were taken down to line the next
habitat of their owner, and that might be the castle of some other
lord, or it might be the tent of an encampment. Again, it might be
that an open-air exposition for a pageant, was the temporary use.

The tapestries thus bundled about, forever hung and unhung on hooks
well or ill-spaced, handled roughly by unknowing varlets or dull
soldiers, these tapestries suffered much, even to the point of
dilapidation, and thus arose the need for a tape border, and thus it
happens also that the relics of that time are found mainly among the
religious pieces. These last found safe asylum within convent walls or
in the sombre quiet of cathedral shades, and like all who dwell within
such precincts were protected from contact with a rude world.

One day, sitting solitary at his wools, it occurred to the weaver of
the early Fifteenth Century to spill some of his flowers out upon the
dark galloon that edged his work. The effect was charming. He
experimented further, went into the enchanted wood of such a design as
that of _The Lady and the Unicorn_ to pluck more flowers, and of them
wove a solid garland, symmetrical, strong, with which to frame the
picture. To keep from confounding this with the airy bells and starry
corollas of the tender inspiring blossoms of the work, he made them
bolder, trained them to their service in solid symmetric mass, and
edged the whole, both sides, with the accustomed two-inch line of
solid rich maroon or blue.

It is easy to see the process of mind. For a long time there had been
gropings, the feeling that so