LOW DRESSES. 
159 
would be expected to come in low dresses; for it would 
seem that the practice of showing their ivory shoulders 
is, as yet, an idea as shocking to the pretty ladies of 
this country as waltzes were to our grandmothers. 
Nay, there was not even to be found a native milliner 
equal to the task of marking out that mysterious line 
which divides the prudish from the improper; so that 
the Collet-monte faction have been in despair. As it 
turned out, their anxiety on this head was unnecessary; 
for we found, on entering the ball-room, that, with the 
natural refinement which characterises this noble people, 
our bright-eyed partners, as if by inspiration, had hit 
off the exact 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 somewhere 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 
