Although needlework still filled a large and honoured place in the lives of women of high station, it was rather an exercise than a necessity. Girls were taught to spin, to sew, and to embroider; a great lady might assist in the devising and making of her own apparel, but more commonly she left it in the hands of the tailors and sempstresses, and when she busied herself with plain needlework it was for the poor. Great families in the country would, for ordinary purposes, employ a local tailor, who would come and do his work at the house. Lady Elizabeth Howard, of Naworth Castle, who lived in the seventeenth century, and was one of the greatest ladies of her time, with a rent-roll of £1040 a year of the money of that period, was satisfied to have the plain serge gowns which she wore for common use made by the country tailor. The flax for the household linen was spun at home and sent to a country weaver. Lady Elizabeth was a woman of simple tastes, too much engrossed with practical affairs to care for display. The curious commissions which great ladies in the seventeenth century gave to their male friends abroad, and the presents exchanged among members of noble families, show that many ordinary articles now in domestic use were then luxuries. In 1679, or thereabouts, the Countess of Sunderland writes to her brother, Mr. Sidney, envoy to Holland, in the following terms:-- “I desire you to lay out £20 for me in Dutch wax candles, which my Lady Temple says are very good. I would have them four to the pound, three parts, and the fourth part six to the pound; and some tea if you love me, for the last you gave was admirable.” One would like to know what quantity of candles Mr. Sidney was able to buy for £20, which represented a much larger sum then, and whether the countess kept a private cupboard in which to lock up these precious articles. Lady Chaworth, in 1676, writes to her brother, Lord Roos, at Belvoir Castle, to thank him, among other things, for a present of some oat-cakes and a pie. She sends him in return a peck of chestnuts and five pounds of vermicelli, some portion of which, she says, is of the same quality as that supplied to the king, who had a consignment of three hundred pounds’ weight. This seems a prodigious quantity, when it is remembered that farinaceous foods were not a staple article of diet. She also sends Lord Roos comfits, which she is pleased to hear that he likes, for she tells him-- “There is four pound of them, and made fresh for you of the purest sugar, though I gave a little more for them.” Lord Roos had a sweet tooth, evidently, and it is to be hoped as sound as sweet, for our ancestors took very little care of their teeth. In 1650 we find Sir Ralph Verney sending to a friend at Florence a present of “teeth-brushes and boxes,” which were new-fangled Parisian articles, described by Sir Ralph as “inconsiderable toyes.”