VII.] 



ICELANDIC LADIES, 



97 



sweep from shoulder to shoulder, at which — after those 

 many oscillations, up and down, which the female corsage 

 has undergone since the time of the first Director — good 

 taste has finally arrested it. 



I happened to be particularly interested in the above 

 important question ; for up to that moment I had always 

 been haunted by a horrid paragraph I had met with some- 



AN ICELANDIC LADY. 



where in an Icelandic book of travels, to the effect that it 

 was the practice of Icelandic women, from early childhood, 

 to flatten down their bosoms as much as possible. This 

 fact, for the honour of the island, I am now in a position to 

 deny ; and I here declare that, as far as I had the indis- 

 cretion to observe, those maligned ladies appeared to me as 

 buxom in form as any rosy English girl I have ever seen. 



