Rather than be introduced to the lace-making of Bruges by the younger workers in the schools, or in one of the thousand homes given over to it, I preferred to go first to the place where probably more strangers, especially English and Americans, have been initiated into the mysteries of the cushion and its bobbins than anywhere else in the world. There have been other famous Béguinages in Belgium—congeries of houses maintained by private endowment, for women, who, while they object to taking the vows of the convent, yet wish to live in a kind of partial retreat from the world and under the protection of the church—but none lovelier than this one of Bruges, with its sixteenth century buildings of pure Flemish architecture, grouped about a wide green court shaded by elm trees. Naturally the Béguinage has not been a mecca for travelers and artists merely because several of the gentle old ladies in retreat there made beautiful lace; they have come in search of its quaint pignons and doorways, its inner gardens, the bridges that span the surrounding canals where the swans paddle peacefully. And they have been delighted to find included in the picture the white-capped women before their lace cushions, intent (doubtless unconsciously) on perpetuating other beauties, as old as those of the buildings encircling the court, the designs of Valenciennes that have been handed down by French and Belgian mothers to their children through generations. These ladies of the Béguinage may keep their private fortunes and pay for the privileges of the retreat. They are supposed, however, to live austerely; their charming brick houses are white inside—wall-papers (as being too gay) are forbidden—while the floors are covered with a kind of pretty, rude rush carpet. They may not go on journeys, and no man outside, except the clergy, may enter the sacred precincts of the court, the gates of which are closed at 8 o’clock. Can one imagine an atmosphere more encouraging to hours spent patiently in lace-making? It is recorded that in the Béguinage of Ghent, in 1756, there were as many as 5,000 women engaged in making the Valenciennes for which that city was famous. But the day of this particular kind of retreat has passed, and even at Bruges many of the houses are vacant; when the old die, there are few who wish to take their places. And it is only because those few who remain preserve the best traditions of the lace that they count in the lace-world of to-day; the quantity produced is negligible. Nevertheless, I was delighted that my first knowledge of Bruges lace should come through the few wide Valenciennes flounces of exquisite flower and vine pattern and firm and even workmanship that I found still pinned to the cushions of the Béguinage.