_Grey_. True, Miss Larches; but a woman is not a vase;--more beautiful
even than this, certainly more precious, perhaps almost as fragile, but
still not a vase; and she shows as little taste in making herself look
like a vase as some potters do in making vases that look like women.

_Mr. Key_. But I thought it was decided that the female figure below the
shoulders should be left to the imagination. Does Mr. Grey propose to
substitute the charming reality of undisguised Nature?

_Grey_. True, we do not attempt to define the female figure below the
waist, at least; but although we may safely veil or even conceal Nature,
we cannot misrepresent or outrage her, except at the cost of utter
loss of beauty. The lines of drapery, or of any article of dress, must
conform to those of that part of the figure which it conceals, or the
effect will be deforming, monstrous.

_Mr. Key._ Does Mr. Grey mean, to say that ladies nowadays' look
monstrous and deformed?

_Grey._ To a certain extent they do. But such is the influence of habit
upon the eye, that we fully apprehend the effect of such incongruity as
that of which I spoke only in the costumes of past generations, or when
there is a very violent, instead of a gradual change in the fashion of
our own day. Look at these full-length portraits of Catherine de Medicis
and the Princess Marguerite, daughter of Francis the First.

_The Ladies._ What frights!

_Mrs. Grey._ No, not both; Marguerite's dress is pretty, in spite of