I promised, and went home full of anticipation at the idea of the new world about to open before my delighted eyes. (_To be continued._) QUEENS AS NEEDLEWOMEN. BY EMMA BREWER. CHAPTER III. After the death of Jean D'Albret a hundred years or more passed before any Queen distinguished herself specially as a needlewoman, and by the time Queen Mary, Princess of Orange, came to the throne, needlework as an employment for the high-born had quite gone out of fashion. She, however, seemed to have the love of it born in her. Every hour not occupied with devotion and business was spent by her in all kinds of needlework; in fact, she worked so well and so constantly that one might have supposed she was earning her daily bread. She regarded idleness as the greatest corrupter of human nature, and she believed that if the mind had no employment it would create some of the worst sort for itself. She tried to impress this upon the ladies of her Court, who had fallen into sad habits of idleness which, she assured them, not only wasted their time, but exposed them to many temptations. It was to remedy this and to imbue them with her love of work that she assembled her ladies every day and worked with them for two or three hours, and while thus employed, one was appointed to read aloud some interesting book. As usual, the Queen's example was followed by all classes of women and girls in the kingdom, and it became as much the fashion to work as it had been to be idle. This example came in the very nick of time, for it was stated on good authority, that "women had become quite mischievous from lack of employment." This action of the Queen, which seems but a small thing, was in reality a great step towards bettering the age. For proofs of this Queen's own beautiful work, one has only to go to Hampton Court Palace where much of it is still to be seen. (Before leaving the seventeenth century, I should like to mention a quaint fact. It is, that a Catherine Sloper is buried in the cloisters of Westminster Abbey--date 1620. Her epitaph is, "Exquisite at her needle." I thought it so curious, standing alone as it does.) Coming to the middle of the eighteenth century, we find a group of royal needlewomen, most of whom found help and comfort in the art of needlework. What, for example, would poor Marie Antoinette, wife of Louis XVI., have done without it in prison, or Josephine, wife of Napoleon, in her retirement, or Queen Charlotte in her domestic sorrow? To begin with Marie Antoinette. She was devoted to needlework, even in her happy and prosperous days. In her own private room at Versailles the low chairs surrounding that in which she usually sat were always full of workbaskets and bags containing wools, silks, and canvas; these, together with the beautiful designs for the tapestry, were bought at the firm of Dubuquoy.