"Blue was used in the Middle Ages for all the services to the Virgin, and it has only fallen into desuetude since the eighteenth century," replied the Abbe Plomb; "and that only in the Latin Church, for the orthodox Churches of the East still wear it." "And why this neglect?" "I do not know, any more than I know why so many colours formerly used in our services have been forgotten. Where are the colours of the ancient Paris use: saffron yellow, reserved for the festival of All Angels; salmon pink, sometimes worn instead of red; ashen grey, which took the place of violet; and bistre instead of black on certain days. "Then there was a charming hue which still holds its place in the scale of colour used in the Roman ritual, though most of the Churches overlook it--the shade called 'old rose,' a medium between violet and crimson, between grief and joy, a sort of compromise, a diminished tone, which the Church adopted for the third Sunday in Advent and the fourth Sunday in Lent. It thus gave promise, in the penitential season that was ending, of a beginning of gladness, for the festivals of Christmas and Easter were at hand. "It was the idea of the spiritual dawn rising on the night of the soul, a special impression which violet, now used on those days, could not give." "Yes, it is to be regretted that blue and rose-colour have disappeared from the Churches of the West," said the Abbe Gevresin. "But to return to the monastic dress which delivered brown, grey, and black from their melancholy significance, does it not strike you that from the point of view of emblematic language, that of the Order of the Annunciation was the most eloquent? Those sisters were habited in grey, white, and red, the colours of the Passion, and they also wore a blue cape and a black veil in memory of Our Mother's mourning." "The image of a perpetual Holy Week!" exclaimed Durtal. "Here is another question," the Abbe Plomb went on. "In the earliest religious pictures the cloaks in which the Virgin, the Apostles, and the Saints are draped almost always show the hue of their lining in ingeniously contrived folds. It is of course different from that of the outer side, as you yourself observed just now with regard to the mantle of Saint Agnes in Angelico's work. Now, do you suppose that, apart from contrast of colour selected for technical purposes, the monk meant to express any particular idea by the juxtaposition of the two colours?" "In accordance with the symbolism of the palette the outer colour would represent the material creature, and the lining colour the spiritual being." "Well, but then what is the significance of Saint Agnes' mantle of green lined with orange?"