How does it happen that, instinctively, we invest this trifle with so much meaning? Can it be that we are the repository of memories of past splendors, invoked by a familiar object which has all but lost its symbolic and poetic significance of ancient times? Even to-day the wearing of gloves lends to the individual a sense of dignity and personal distinction. Like Mrs. Wilfer, of Dickens fame, our grandeur is increased by our gloves. In the pages which follow we shall discover that the background of our subject is one of the richest and most picturesque we could desire to explore. Gloves have deeply affected the lives of human beings from the very earliest periods. They have descended to us from a remote antiquity, and are in very fact our inherited title to nobility, for they were bequeathed to us by the princely prelates, the kings and over-lords of the past, whose chief insignia and most treasured badge of honor was the glove. To comprehend all that they have brought with them down through the centuries we must retrace a vast deal of history, and let our imaginations play over scenes and customs far removed from our own day. We shall find the glove intimately bound up with the development of social usages in every land. To solemn observances in which the glove filled a special role, much of the impressiveness of the stately rites of the mediæval church was due. The white linen glove on the hand of a bishop literally represented to the people the stainless purity of the revered palm raised in benediction. The glove itself was holy. No layman dared to clothe his hands in the presence of the clergy. Kings and the military, however, wore gloves with quite a different meaning. In appearance, also, their gloves were utterly unlike those consecrated for religious use. Of heavy leather, elaborately tooled or decorated, or the mailed gauntlet which formed part of a warrior’s armor, they signified authority, power, and were often conveyed from one prince to another as an expression of hostility, or as a promise of good faith.