had been deceived by concealment. But that tells nothing against the
modesty of our grandmothers. What is modest in dress depends entirely on
what is customary; and there is an immodesty that hides, as well as one
that exposes. Unconsciousness is modesty's triple shelter against shame.
See here, the dissolute Marguerite of Navarre, visible only at head and
hands; the former from the chin upwards, the latter from the knuckles
downwards; and here, _La belle Hamilton_, rightly named, as chaste as
beautiful, and so modest in her carriage that she escaped the breath of
scandal even in the court of Charles II., and yet with a gown (if
gown it can be called) so loose about the bust and arms that the pink
night-gown would blush crimson at it.

_Tomes_. The ladies seem convinced, though puzzled; but that is because
they don't detect your fallacy. You confound the woman and the fashion.
An immodest woman may be modestly dressed; and if it is the fashion to
be so, she most certainly will, unless she is able herself to set a
fashion more suited to her taste. For usually a woman's care of her
costume is in inverse proportion to that she takes of her character.

_The Ladies [having a vague notion that "inverse proportion" means
something horrible'_]. Mr. Tomes!

_Grey_. Don't misapprehend my friend Daniel. On this occasion he has
come to judgment upon a subject of which he knows so little that it is
worse than nothing. I have reason to believe that he has a profound
respect for one of you, and, being a bachelor, such exalted notions of
your sex in general that he would not wantonly misjudge the humblest
individual of it. His remark was but the fruit of such sheer innocence
with regard to your charming sisterhood, that he has yet to learn that
there is not a single member of it, who confesses to less than seventy