And then they brought us something much less important, but nevertheless exquisite, the work of Sister S., which they show rarely, a length of Rose Point about four inches wide, and which even the women of the Committee after their long years’ constant experience in lace, said they had never seen surpassed. The linen thread ordinarily used in Venise runs from Number 200 to Number 300. This lace, whose base is formed by an ethereal interlacing of vines and tendrils, is made with Number 2000. One can work on it scarcely more than two or three hours a day, and then only under the best light. Sister S. brought me the magnifying-glass, without which I could not have followed the exquisitely varied points, and lifted the infinitesimal petals of the tiny flowers incrusting the background of interwoven tendrils. In some of these microscopic blooms were as many as four layers of petals. It would be useless to attempt to describe the loveliness that results from the blending of the background of vines and lifted blossoms. I asked what a meter of such lace would bring and learned that it will probably be sold in Paris for 1,000 francs, tho these sisters would be happy to guard it as one of their convent treasures. [Illustration: CUSHION COVER IN VENISE Pekinese dog design, by M. Allard] [Illustration: TABLE CENTER IN FLANDERS WITH CENTER AND BORDER OF VENISE Design by Lace Committee; executed in West Flanders by five workers in 15 days] We had intended going into some of the neighborhood houses to watch the work of the older women, but it seemed impossible to look at any other lace that day and we said good-by. And while the chauffeur brushed away the small boys clinging to or crawling over the car, we again tucked our sister in, to carry her home to Kerxken; it had been a great day for Sœur Robertine and for us. VIII OPBRAKEL _Mother House of a Famous Lace-making Order_ After Kerxken and Erembodeghem I was not surprized, when inquiring about needle laces further south, to learn that the only school whose work could dispute first place with them was that of the mother house of the same order at Opbrakel. I had come to know that the finest needle laces of Belgium are made in these convents of the Sœurs Franciscaines. It was a bitter day, but I determined to reach Opbrakel despite shell-pitted roads and rain. I succeeded even in making a short stop on the way at Cruyshautem Convent, famous, too, for its Needle Point, where the sisters would have detained me longer to describe again and again the entry of the American soldiers at 9 o’clock in the morning on All Saints Day—the wonderful American soldiers who had arrived to free them from their oppressors of four years, and who had remained to buy every scrap of lace in the convent, carrying away the address with the promise to send for more.