DRESS. -245 



It is not enough that a gentlewomen should be clever, or well-educated, or 

 well-born. To take her due place in society, she must be acquainted with 

 all that this little book proposes to teach. She must, above all else, know 

 how to enter a room, how to perform 'a graceful salutation, and how to 

 lress. Of these three important qualifications, the most important, because 

 the most observed, is the latter. 



Let your style of dress always be appropriate to the hour of the day. 

 To dress too finely in the morning, or to be seen in a morning dress in the 

 evening, is equally vulgar and out of place. 



Liirht and inexpensive materials are fittest for morning wear ; dark silk 

 ses for the promenade or carriage ; and low dresses of rich or trans- 

 parent stuffs for the dinner and ball. A young lady cannot dress with too 

 much simplicity in the early part of the day. A morning dress of some 

 simple material, and delicate whole colour, with collar and cuffs of spotless 

 linen, is, perhaps, the most becoming and elegant of morning toilettes. 



r dress very richly or showily in the street. It attracts attention 

 of no enviable kind, and is looked upon as a want of good breeding. In 

 the carriage a lady may dress as elegantly as she pleases. With respect 

 to ball-room toilette, its fashions are so variable, that statements which 

 are true of it to-day may be false a month hence. Respecting no institu- 

 tion of modern society, is it so difficult to pronounce half-a-dozen perma- 

 nent rules. 



\V.- may, perhaps, be permitted to suggest the following leading princi- 

 ples ; but we do so with diffidence. Rich colours harmonize with rich 

 brunette complexions and dark hair. Delicate colours are the most suita- 

 ble fr delicate and fragile styles of beauty. Very young ladies are never 

 -lit ably attired as in white. Ladies who dance should wear dresses of 

 liijht and diaphanous materials, such as tidle, gauze, crape, net, etc., over 

 coloured silk dips, Silk dresses are not suitable for dancing. A married 

 lady who dances only a fewquadrilles may wear a decollette silk dress with 

 propriety. 



-tout prr-uns should never wear white. It has the effect f adding 

 to the bulk of tin- figure. 



Black and scarlet, or hlaek and violet, are worn in mourn 



A lady in deep mourning should nut dance at all. 



However fashionable it may be to wear very long dresses, tho-.- ladies 



who go to a ball with the intention of dancing, and enjoying the damv, 



i their d I > be made short enough to clear t he ground. 



We would a-k them whethei to accept this slight deviation 



