After 60 years’ experience in lace, and latterly she has employed 1,000 women, Mlle. Mullie says that one is fortunate, among 5,000 workers, to find five who can execute a sample from a drawing not already interpreted or pricked for the worker. Before the war there were two good piqueuses in Ypres to whom Courtrai sent her difficult patterns, but only one of these still lives. In peace-time the greater part of this Courtrai lace goes to Paris (some is sent to New York), which is all one needs to say in tribute to its pattern and its quality. Paris knows lace better than any other city in the world; she accepts only the best. We were talking of the 60 per cent. duty the United States Government levies on imported laces, and the harm it works to the Belgian industry. “That is our greatest discouragement, but there are other Government stupidities,” Mlle. Mullie smiled. “France, for instance, charges 10½ francs on a kilo of Valenciennes, and the same amount on an equal weight of Cluny; the Valenciennes may be worth several thousand, and the Cluny three or four francs!” The true old Valenciennes mesh, called “Rond,” is still made at Courtrai, as well as at Bruges; the modern Valenciennes commonly has a square mesh, which is preferred by many connoisseurs, since it is more transparent and sets the flowers off more strikingly. “Whether or not you prefer it to the square, you must see the traditional round Valenciennes mesh,” Mlle. Mullie said, and we started off in the rain for a group of tiny brick houses, the Gottshuisen (God’s houses) which the city furnishes free to certain old people. Before we reached the first, I saw two white heads near a window, bending over cushions; and once inside, on those cushions, lengths of snowy Valenciennes of the old round mesh, of an admirable regularity and loveliness. These two women were both over 70 years old, and they sat before their bobbins, twisting and braiding the eight threads of the mesh as they had twisted and braided them for over a half century, and still cheerfully hoping that they might some day win more than 15 or 20 cents a day for their work. “Now we must have more,” they said gently, “because thread and oil are so much more expensive than they were before the war.” In the next house, the old woman whose sister was ill could afford no light at all; when dusk fell she had to leave her bobbin mounds and her mesh and flowers and go to bed—what else could she do without coal or oil? It was the last day of 1918, and I decided that Mrs. Bayard Henry of Philadelphia, who had sent me a little money to use as I chose, would be happy to give to these sweet, faithful women and their thirteen neighbors, candles and oil as hope symbols for the New Year. I left her gift with Mlle. Mullie.