The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1890-04-27
cHAsUBLE, ALB AND STOLE.


The most charming library have lately
seen is hung with curtains from old confess
sionals. II belongs to a woman who loves
books and who loves embroideries. She
found these somewhere In Canada, in a little
church that was debt laden and dropping in
pieces, and she paid for them price that
was stuff enough TO 60 some distance on re-
pairs. They're rich crimson silk, dullei
in tint by age, and wrought with gold
thread aud bullion. A lot of altar cloths
and cloaks included in a recent exhil ition
of art objects was sold at prices plainly
indicating what hold the crazs for
churchly belongings has taken on women
able to indulge such costly fancies in
decoration. The laugh has gone round
for years at the expense of a lady with
more money than education, who was
said to have bought hangings in Italy
marked !. II. S. because the letters were
her fathers initials, but now there are
women in plenty daring enough to wear the
heavy laces wrought for archbishops in
their life long leisure by nuns. who grow
dim-eyed over their self-imposed tasks till
they could hardly distinguish the work of
their own fingers as it lay across the priests
shoulders when the bell rang and the censor
smoked and the candle fame win1ed as the
host was elevated. The fancy for &C.
cesiastical embroideries we have
borrowed from the studios. The artists
began to bring home from Italy spoils
from the vestment rooms years ago.
The secularization of the monasteries aud
nunneries threw into the market a great
store OF abs, chasubles and stoles, which
cost little or nothing, but with their glow
ing colors and RIGA stitchery in gold and
silver, silks and pearls, made most wonder
full hangings and backgrounds. First one
wealthy woman and then another caught
the idea, and began to buy on her summer
tours and to commission agents to be on the
lookout for fine pieces, and then the agents
themselves cornered the market and put up
the figures Everything of the sort is
now very expensive. but if you are
able to procure All altar cloth from an old
cathedral TO throw over the couch in your
drawing room the chances are that its
white silk, yellowed by time, with border
or cherubs' heads with silken curls and ii "
wings all in furnished gold will win you more
admiration as a woman of resource, than
any other possible decoration. The RELIC
ieltSes and the pious lay women put their
religion into their fingers. The silks and
satins from the vestmenU chests are rich
enough to stand alo e, and the scroll de-
signs in bullion thread that are like those
illuminating the pages of old missals are
done to last 300 years
One well-known New York woman has
the mantel of her parlor decked with two
gorgeous embroidered cloaks, and these are
enough to maintain her social reputation.
Another has her receiving room curtained
with ecclesiastical cloths in reddish brown.
stitched with gold and green and blue, and
third has half the chairs of her drawing
room upholstered with the same
elaborate sllken labors. The woman
who keeps up with the times is
ever on the alert for prize in
the shape of a scrap OF church en-
broidery that can be turned into a table
scarf or a piece of stole that will cover a
divan cushion. Some of the best things of
this sort have seen belong to a woman
who, by long proving among dealers in
antiques in half the capitals of Europe
after tHem, has become a connoisseur and
amassed famous collection, but is now IN
happy because she cannot find a house with
just the right light IN the library to display
to advantage her green hangings wrought
in blue and silver.
THE FLOWER RIDE AND THE RIDING cos
TUNE.
Now that the violets are blooming and
the sky is vault of brilliant and unfathom-
able blue, the horsewomen are cut for their
flower rides. Over the downs of Long Island
or up the splendid roads that wind along the
banks of tie Hudson or among the Orange
hills they gallop, and drink tea from costly
Dresden cups handed about under building
NAPLES at noon and bring home more pleas