IN THE HIDING-SCHOOL. 175 



were wider than they are to-day. But all the 

 ladies of Arthur's court seem to have ridden in 

 their ordinary dress. Enid, for instance, was 

 arrayed in the faded silk which had been her 

 house-dress and walking-dress in girlhood, when 

 she performed her little feat of guiding six armor- 

 laden horses. Queen Elizabeth and Mary Stuart 

 seem to have liked velvet, either green or black, 

 and to have adorned it with gold lace, and both 

 probably took their fashions from France ; the 

 young woman in the Scotch ballad was "all in 

 cramoisie " ; Kate Peyton wore scarlet broad- 

 cloth, but secretly longed for purple, having 

 been told by a rival, who probably found her 

 too pretty in scarlet, that green or purple was 

 "her color." 



There are crimson velvet and dark blue velvet 

 and Lincoln green velvet habits without end in 

 fiction, and in the records of English royal ward- 

 robes, but, beautiful as velvet is, and exquisitely 

 becoming as it would be, you would better not 

 indulge your artistic taste by wearing it. It 

 would cost almost three times as much as cloth ; 

 it would be nearly impossible to make a well 

 fitting modern skirt of it, and it would be worn 



