two shades on the same broche
or shuttle. Hatching, as we know, is merely a penman's trick, of
shading with lines of light and dark.

It was when they began to paint the lily, in the days of pretty
corruption, that the whole matter of dyeing changed. In the Eighteenth
Century when the Regent Philip, and then La Pompadour, set the mode,
things greatly altered. When big decorative effects were no more, the
stimulating effect of deep strong colour was considered vulgar, and,
only the suave sweetness of Boucher, Nattier, Fragonard, were admired.
Every one played a pretty part, all life was a theatre of gay comedy,
or a flattered miniature.

So, as we have seen, new times and new modes caused the Gobelins to
copy paintings instead of to interpret cartoons--and there lay the
destruction of their art. Instead of four-score tones, the dyers hung
on their lines tens and tens of thousands. And the weavers wove them
all into their fabric-painting, with the result that when the light
lay on them long, the delicate shades faded and with them was lost the
meaning of the design. And that is why the Gobelins of the older time
are worth more as decoration than those of the later.

We are doing a little better nowadays. There is a limit to the tones,
and in all new work a decided tendency to abandon the copying of
brush-shading in favour of a more restricted gamut of colour. By this
means the future worker may regain the lost charm of the simple old
pieces of work.

Another room in the factory of tapestry interests those who like to
see the creation of things. It is one of the prettiest rooms of all,
and is more than ever like a kindergarten for grown-ups. Or, if you
like, it is a chamber in a feudal castle where the women gather when
the men are gone to war.

Here the workers are all girls and women, each bending over a large
embroidery frame supported at a convenient level from the floor. On
one frame is a long flowered border with cartouches in the strong rich
colours of Louis XIV. On another a sofa-seat copied from Boucher. They
are both new, but like all work fresh from the loom are full of the
open slits left in the process of weaving, a necessity of the changing
colours and the requirements of the drawing.

All these little slits, varying from half an inch to several inches in
length, must be sewed with strong, careful stitches before the
tapestry can be considered complete.

On other frames are stretched old tapestries f