the brain no instruction, to perceive that such an outline cannot be
produced by drapery upon a woman's form. It is clear, at a glance, that
there is an artificial structure underneath that swelling skirt; that a
scaffold, a framework, has been erected to support that dome of silk;
and that the wearer is merely an automatic machine by which it is made
to perambulate. A woman in this rig hangs in her skirts like a clapper
in a bell; and I never meet one without being tempted to take her by the
neck and ring her.

_Mr. Key_. Those belles like ringing well enough, but not exactly of
that kind.

_Grey_. The costume is also faulty in two other most important respects:
it is without pure, decided color of any tint, but is broken into
patches and blotches of various mongrel hues,----

_Mrs. Grey_. Hear the man! that exquisite brocade!

_Grey_.----and whatever effect it might otherwise have had, of form
or color, would be entirely frittered away by the multitudinous and
multiform trimmings with which it is bedizened; and it is without a
girdle of any kind.

_Mrs. Grey_. Oh, sweet Simplicity, hear and reward thy priest and
prophet! What would your Highness have the woman wear?--a white muslin
gown, with a blue sash, and a rose in her hair? That style went out on
the day that Mesdames Shem, Ham, and Japhet left the ark.

_Grey_. And well it might,--for evening-dress, at least No,--my taste,
or, if you will permit me to say it, good taste, craves rich colors, and