We could not see Adele Rulant, once with hardly a peer in Needle Point, to whom people from far and near had sent their old pieces, even shreds of their family treasure, for restoration, knowing that almost certainly her artist’s needle would recapture the lost mesh or flower. Adele Rulant had died and we realized again how surely one by one the famous dentellières of the last half of the 19th century are dropping out. We turned down a lane and were soon at the green door of the convent of the black-robed Franciscaine Sisters, who dismayed, but smiling, hurried forward to greet us, very fresh looking in their white lined coiffes and collars. I say dismayed, because through an error they had expected us the day before and had kept a fire burning for hours, a supreme expression of hospitality in this bitter, coalless winter; this was Saturday afternoon, there was no fire, and the lace-workers were at home scrubbing their tiled floors and doorsteps. But they would light a fire at once, and send a Sister to the nearest houses to recall at least a few of the women; they would prepare lunch for us, a plate of little cakes and a bottle of wine had already been set on the table. Such an apologetic bustle of welcome was heart-warming on a cheerless day. Nothing less, I am certain, would have made it possible for me to drink an entire glass of sour red wine at 10:30 o’clock in the morning. I wished particularly to visit the convent because I had known during the four years of Sœur Robertine’s successive victories over the Germans. After they refused to let laces pass except through their hands, which taxed and had frequently stolen from the parcels, time and again she outwitted them, crossing the forbidden village frontier and carrying the precious rolls herself to the office of the Committee at Brussels. Beneath the calm of that office there was always tense expectancy; at any moment anything might happen, even the worst thing. One day after weeks of being entirely cut off from many of their lace sections, when the women were more strained and anxious than ever before, the door opened quietly and Sœur Robertine, of Kerxken, a prohibited district, stood before them. Fear for her quite overcame their joy at seeing her; they quickly turned the key and hurried her into a rear room. “But why have you come? We did not send for you—we should never have allowed you to take such risks!”