repaired, and so perfectly that it was impossible to distinguish what part had been restored without looking at the wrong side of the work. Lying in bunches and snarls on the work, or hanging in long rows of varied hues on the wall, were skeins of wool, of every shade and color, dim, dark, soft, or pallid, like colors seen by night, by the stars, or by the moon, or colors guessed at by eyes half-blind or by eyes that are dying. There was a suggestion of tragedy in those old new colors, as in sad or blighted faces of children. And how much more of interest and tragedy in the old tapestries for which they had lost all their brightness! Nothing else is so interwoven with romantic possibilities as old tapestry. Luxury, which may have been regal, clings to it, but it is the luxury of olden times, when the beggar touched the prince. Mystery and terror are its companions; for who knows who or what may sometimes have been hidden behind that splendid curtain? Lifting its fold on some day of an age gone by, what white, cold face might have been found there between it and the wall, what sliding figure of a hiding spy, what twinkle of a dagger-point in the dusky corner! And then what pageants does it not suggest of the times when life was a picture! “It really takes one out of the nineteenth century,” Mr. Vane said. “The weaving of this tapestry,” the Signora told her friends, “was first taught here by a monk—I have forgotten in the time of what pope. This monk was a backslider and ran away from his convent; after being absent ten years he repented, and came back to throw himself at the feet of the Holy Father. 'Give me any penance, Holy Father,’ he said, 'and I will do it gladly.’ The pope, rejoiced to receive this prodigal, asked him where and how he had passed the ten years of his absence, and was told that they had been spent in the tapestry-works of Coblentz, where he had learned all the art of tapestry-making. 'Go, then, to St. Michael’s,’ said the pope, 'and teach them to make tapestry. That shall be your penance.’ And so it was done; and that is the origin of the work in Rome. The story was told me by a prelate who was formerly director of St. Michael’s.” It was too near noon when the inspection was over for them to go to Santa Francesca’s vineyard. They could only hide themselves in the large covered carriage, and drive slowly home through the almost silent streets. They sighed with contentment when they reached the doorway, where, through the half-open valves, the floor showed freshly sprinkled and all the place cool and softly lighted.