ample, flowing lines,--colors which require taste to be shown in their
arrangement and adaptation, and forms which show invention and knowledge
in their design. Your woman who dresses in white, and your man who wears
plain black, are safe from impeachment of their taste, just as people
who say nothing are secure against an exhibition of folly or ignorance.
They are the mutes of costume, and contribute nothing to the chromatic
harmony of the social circle. They succeed in nothing but the avoidance
of positive offence.

_Miss Larches_. Pray, then, Mr. Grey, what--shall--we--do? You have
condemned enough, and told us what is wrong; can't you find in all this
collection a single costume that is positively beautiful? and can't you
tell us what is right, as well as what is wrong?

_Grey_. Both,--and will. The first, at once; the last, if you continue
to desire it. Here are two costumes, quite unlike in composition and
effect, and yet both beautiful;--the first, the fashions of 1811 and
1812 (for the variations, during that time, were so trifling, and in
such unessential particulars, that the costume had but one character, as
you will see by comparing the twenty-four plates for those years); the
second, that worn by this peasant-girl of Normandy. Look first at the
fashion-plates, and see the adaptation of that beautiful gown to all the
purposes for which a gown is intended. How completely it clothes the
entire figure, and with what ease and comfort to the wearer! There is
not a line about it which indicates compression, or one expressive of
that looseness and languishing abandonment that we remarked just now
in the costume of _La belle Hamilton_. The entire person is concealed,
except the tip of one foot, the hands, the head and throat, and just
enough of the bust to confess the existence of its feminine charms,
without exposing them; both limbs and trunk are amply draped; and yet