exquisite shade of heliotrope, and a russet coat worn with a fur cap and
red neckerchief, compose an effect that for harmonious colouring would
be hard to beat. The female of his species, as is the case in all
natural animals, is content to be less adorned. Her skirt is black, her
apron blue. While she is young, her neatly dressed hair, even in the
coldest weather, is guiltless of covering. As her years increase she
takes her choice of three head-dresses, and to shelter her grey locks
selects either a black knitted hood, a checked cotton handkerchief, or a
white cap of ridiculously unbecoming design.

No French workaday father need fear that his earnings will be squandered
on such perishable adornments as feathers, artificial flowers, or
ribbons. The purchases of his spouse are certain to be governed by
extreme frugality. She selects the family raiment with a view to
durability. Flimsy finery that the sun would fade, shoddy materials that
a shower of rain would ruin, offer no temptations to her. When she
expends a few _sous_ on the cutting of her boy's hair, she has it
cropped until his cranium resembles the soft, furry skin of a mole, thus
rendering further outlay in this respect unlikely for months. And when
she buys a flannel shirt, a six-inch strip of the stuff, for future
mending, is always included in the price.

But with all this economy there is an air of comfort, a complete absence
of squalor. In cold weather the school-girls wear snug hoods, or little
fur turbans; and boys have the picturesque and almost indestructible
bérets of cloth or corduroy. Cloth boots that will conveniently slip
inside sabots for outdoor use are greatly in vogue, and the comfortable
Capuchin cloaks--whose peaked hood can be drawn over the head, thus
obviating the use of umbrellas--are favoured by both sexes and all ages.