"What did you mean, Pierre, when you spoke of loaded silk?" questioned his mother. "I have heard the term used many times, but I have never understood it." Pierre looked at her with amusement. "Anybody would think that I was your schoolteacher, Mother mine!" he returned. "I feel very silly telling you things when you are so much older and wiser than I." "I certainly am older; and I used to be a little wiser," replied his mother humorously, "but I shall not be so long. You see, dear, I never had much education and I am now too old to learn. But you are accumulating knowledge every day. You are like a sponge, Pierre. You seem to soak up every bit of information that you hear." "I must get my schooling this way, Mother, since I can secure it in no other," answered the boy soberly. "And perhaps it is a good way after all, for since I am eager to know something I try and remember every scrap I hear. I may want to use it later." "Your father used to say that no knowledge comes amiss," was his mother's soft answer. "How proud your father would be of you, Pierre!" "But I must know more, and more, and still more, Mother, before I can get to the top!" exclaimed the boy eagerly. "And now to tell you of weighted silks. You see, in dyeing silk the material shrinks and loses about a quarter of its weight. Manufacturers found that by adding chemicals, or sugar and glucose during the boiling off, they could make up for this loss. That is how the custom started. Black silks, which shrunk the most, were treated first. Later the practice spread to colored, and even to white silks. Now, alas, the evil seems to have come to stay. Salts of tin in varying degrees are used in the dyeing of most silks, and the result is that the material becomes crisp and harsh so that it cracks when folded, and does not wear long." "What a pity!" "Yes. And yet perhaps the Americans, who are none too anxious to wear out their old clothes, are quite as well satisfied," chuckled Pierre. "In what an endless number of ways silk is used!" reflected Madame Bretton. "Yes. And when you have done with the ribbons, and trimmings, and braids, and silks, and upholstery brocades, and satins, think of the velvets and plushes that can now be made in this country in all sorts of fancy designs on power-looms instead of on hand-looms as formerly. Of course it is still cheaper to import certain kinds of velvets and plushes; but a great many of them are made here, as are the larger proportion of the velvet ribbons which are easily turned out on high-power machines." "What about silk hosiery and underwear?" questioned his mother, much interested.