This interest in the study of heraldry wavered in intensity but did not die till the days of a new nation; and we find from the middle of the seventeenth to the middle of the eighteenth century that young girls in the families of gentlefolk paid much attention to the making of coats of arms. Those painted on glass were the richest in color and the most satisfactory, but embroidered ones were more common. The choicest materials were used, the drawing was carefully executed, and the stitches minute. It is interesting to note that the laws of the herald were strictly regarded in the setting of the stitches. In _azure_ the stitches were laid parallel across the escutcheon; in _gules_, perpendicular; in _purpure_, diagonally from right to left, and so on. [Illustration: Jerusha Pitkin's Embroidery and Frame] Here is shown an unfinished coat of arms of the Pitkin family which belonged to Jerusha Pitkin, who was born in 1736. The frame upon which the work is stretched, the manner in which it is mounted, the hand-made nails that fasten it, the way the work is outlined, are all of interest. The needle still is thrust in the black satin background where it was left by girlish hands a century and a half ago. Colored silks, gold bullion and thread to complete this work have been preserved with it. The embroidery is on black satin, and is lozenge-shaped, as was the proper shape of a hatchment or mourning emblem; and it is possible that this work was begun as a funeral piece, commemorative of some Pitkin ancestor. Such funeral pieces were deemed a very dignified observance of respect and mark of affection. They had as successors what were definitely termed "mourning pieces," bearing stiff presentments of funeral urns, monuments, drooping willows, and sometimes a bowed and weeping figure.