OYAH.--A guipure lace or openwork embroidery, made by means of a hook in a fashion similar to crochet. The pattern is often elaborate, and in silks of many colors, representing flowers, foliage, etc. It is sometimes in relief. PARCHMENT.--Lace in whose manufacture parchment has been used, whether in the pattern for the worker's guidance, or for stiffening the fabric, as in Cartisane lace. In old accounts of laces, the term was often applied to those made on the pillow to distinguish them from needle-point laces, and it was derived from the pattern on which pillow laces were worked. {59} [Illustration: Imitation Point de Venise Combined with Point Gaze.] {60} PASSEMENT.--A term applied to the oldest class of pillow laces, at a time when they were of comparatively simple construction, being little more than open braids and gimps. This designation was in use until the middle of the seventeenth century. The word is now applied to a decorative edging or trimming, especially a gimp or braid. It is an old French word, and in the country of its origin included in its meaning both lace and embroideries. It has an interesting literary association, having figured, under the slightly altered form of "passemens," in a satirical poem published at Paris in 1661. The poem, which is entitled "La Revolte des Passemens," is dedicated to Mademoiselle de la Trousse, a cousin of Madame de Sevigne, and was probably composed by one of her literary friends. It is a protest against a sumptuary law passed in the previous year to check the lavish expenditure on laces imported from Venice and Italy, and is interesting as an account of the best laces of that day, among which are "Pointes de Genes, de Raguse, de Venise, d'Angleterre et de Flanders," as well as the "Gueuse" of humbler pretensions. The various laces are supposed to revolt against the law excluding them from France, and especially from their place in the exalted society of the court. Mesdames les Broderies-- "Le Poincts, Dentelles, Passemens, Qui par une vaine despence, Ruinoient aujourd'hui la France"-- call an indignation meeting. One of them hotly demands what punishment shall be meted out to the court for such treatment-- "Dites moi je vous prie, Poincts, dentelles ou broderies, Qu'aurons nous donc fait a la cour," etc. Various laces speak their mind freely in reply, but most of them are gloomy as to the future, while a few try to take a philosophical view of the situation, and resign themselves to an humbler though still useful fate. An English lace, "une Grande Dentelle d'Angleterre" answers "Cet infortune sans seconde Elle fait bien renoncer au monde * * * * * * Pour ne plus tourner a tout vent Comme d'entrer dans un Convent."