dear me, I forget the number and the square 99 Hilary unsuspiciously supplied both. "Yes, that's it-the old gentleman as Mr. Leaf went to dine with every other Sunday, a very rich old gentleman, who, he says, is to leave him all his money. Maybe a relation of yours, miss ? " "No," said Hilary; and adding something about the landlady's hearing from Mr. Leaf very soon, she hurried out of the house, Elizabeth following. "Wont you be tired if you walk so fast, Miss Hilary?" Hilary stopped, choking. Helplessly she looked up and down the forlorn, wide, glaring, dusty street; now sinking into the dull shadow of a London afternoon. "Let us go home!" And at the word, a sob burst out-just one passionate pentup sob. No more. She could not afford to waste strength in crying. "As you say, Elizabeth, I am getting tired; and that will not do. Let me see; something must be decided." And she stood still, passing her hand over her hot brow and eyes. "I will go back and take the lodgings, leave you there to make all comfortable, and then fetch my sisters from the hotel. But stay first, I have forgotten something." She returned to the house in Gower Street, and wrote on one of her cards an address the only permanent address she could think of-that of the city broker who was in the habit of paying them their yearly income of £50. "If any creditors inquire for Mr. Leaf, give them this. His friends may always hear of him at the London University." "Thank you, ma'am," replied the now civil landlady. "Indeed, I wasn't afraid of the young gentleman giving us the slip. For though he was careless in his bills, he was every inch the gentleman. And I wouldn't object to take him in again. Or p'raps you yourself, ma'am, might be a-wanting rooms." "No, I thank you. Good-morning." And Hilary hurried away. Not a word did she say to Elizabeth, or Elizabeth to her, till they got into the dull, dingy parlor-henceforth to be their sole apology for "home:" and then she only talked about domestic arrangements: talked fast and eagerly, and tried to escape the affectionate eyes which she knew were so sharp and keen. Only to escape them—not to blind them; she had long ago found out that Elizabeth was too quick-witted for that, especially in anything that concerned “the family." She felt convinced the girl had heard every syllable that passed at Ascott's lodgings; that she knew all that was to be known, and guessed what was to be feared, as well as Hilary herself. "Elizabeth"-she hesitated long, and doubted whether she should say the thing, before she did say it-"remember we are all strangers in London, and family matters are best kept within the family. Do not mention either in writing home, or to anybody hereabout-about-" She could not name Ascott; she felt so horribly ashamed. Funny the colloquies Heard in all trades, Since all our shiners went Barkeepers charge for drinks Lord! how the "greens " mount up All business done in stamps Clearly is fair, Seeing the payments made Needs must be square. Keep then the game alive, Add to the batch, Into "the current" throw Nothing but Patch. -Vanity Fair. From London Society. A LADY'S DRESS. they ought, because injudiciously used or improperly combined. Dress should be to DRESS DURING THE LAST TEN YEARS-PRESENT the person what the frame is to the picture, FASHIONS-HINTS ON THE HARMONY OF COLOR. PART I. subordinate-the setting that enhances the beauty of the gem, but does not overwhelm "DRESS," says a lively writer some twelve it. or fourteen years ago (referring to female attire), " is a kind of personal glossary-a species of body phrenology, the study of which it would be madness to neglect." This last assertion is rather strong; still, viewed in the light of a guide-book for the quiet observer of character-as an index to the tastes, habits of life, and condition of a people—a certain value must be conceded to the subject, even by those who denounce it as a frivolous topic, unworthy of any attention. But it assumes real importance, when we recognize it as the spring that moves the many hands of industry, and see in its wants and demands the stimulants that work upon man's fancy, taste, and inventive powers exercise his skill and patience, and even impel him to study and scientific research. What knowledge and calculation were necessary, for instance, before the machinery that has brought calico-printing to its present perfection could be produced! What experiments were essayed in the laboratory before a new shade of color could be procured to meet the taste for novelty, and, when procured, before it could be fixed and made permanently available! During the last few years, we have had the hue of the fuchsia, the tender shade of the Chinese primrose, reproduced on silk or muslin, and delicate greens, seen before in nature only, rendered as lasting as in our climate a delicate color can be. In looking at the rich array of shades and hues employed in our present manufactures, we begin to question whether the use of the three primary colors in the earlier stages of society is to stand, as some writers on color are fond of assuming, the evidence of a purer taste, or simply the result of necessity. We cannot think that any people possessing the means we now do, of robbing Nature of all her exquisite coloring, would have contented themselves with simple red, blue, and yellow. However effective and valuable, combinations of these with black or white are, for architectural and decorative purposes, for costume the neutrals and hues are peculiarly adapted, and only fail in pleasing as Do not let it be supposed, however, that we are advocates of the sober browns, the grays, fawns, etc., the quiet colors that some people think the garb of propriety, to the exclusion of bright color. No! we dearly love and duly appreciate color; we have hailed with delight the resumption of the scarlet cloak this winter by our fair countrywomen, especially at a time of public mourning, when our streets have worn so monotonous and sombre an aspect. The eye has been gladdened and refreshed by the warm bright red, set off by the black dress beneath; and the welcome effect it produced, proved to our minds how much pleasure we insensibly derive from the presence of color. We are hardly aware of it until we lose it: the aspect of our crowded thoroughfares lately enables us to form some idea of what we should feel, if, by some freak of fashion, the fair sex were to adopt a costume as unvaried and hideous as the present masculine attire; and if our shops, that now display all that is lovely in color and exquisite in design, had nothing more attractive to offer than broadcloth or black stuff. We should feel depressed. The eye needs the stimulant of color and variety to keep it from fatigue; and beneath our gray and colorless sky we want more color not less. Some thirteen or fourteen years ago, color was certainly at a discount in dress as well as in architecture and decoration. That there has been a revival in its favor no one will deny. For dress the palest of shades were then preferred; a full color was pronounced vulgar, and brunettes were content to look ill in silver gray and faded pink, whilst blondes appeared in the most ethereal of blues. Well! fashion has changed to more advantage in this respect than in others; for although the material for a lady's dress was then inferior in design and color to what it now is, we think the general effect was preferable, more simple, more graceful, less extravagant in every sense of the word. But then a well-dressed woman was rather the exception than the rule, and we must allow shorn of their former proportions in their native towns, and their pockets well filled, owing to the money compensation received in lieu of these rights: they therefore closed their old Schlosses, bade farewell to their former grand dulness, and repaired to Vienna or Munich, to dance away regret, spend their money, display their hereditary dia cation the attentions of a court anxious to conciliate and console. that now the reverse is the case. English- and the payments in kind often oppressively women are less fagoté-to use an untrans- enforced, found their dignity and importance latable French word than they were. They buy their bonnet with reference to the dress or cloak it is destined to accompany; they have ceased to think that they can furbish up a faded garment by a bow of ribbon here, or a bunch of flowers there; they are particular about their gloves and their shoes; they have added the finish of neatness to their dress, and rival the French-monds and pearls, and receive with gratifiwoman in a point once peculiarly her own. But then, if our countrywoman's taste has improved, we fear her expenses have pro- "Society," as the word is understood in gressed also, for luxury and extravagance in Southern Germany, comprises a very limdress have vastly increased during the last ited circle. That wondrous dovetailing in ten years. How is this to be accounted for ? of all classes that we have in England, and to what is it owing? To French influence! which makes our society consequently the cries a chorus of angry fathers and husbands most varied and intellectual in the world, is with Christmas bills fresh in their recollec- yet unknown there; and ten years ago the tions. Well, Paris, it is true, has long held old nobility resented any attempt to introundisputed sway over the fashions of the duce a new element into their world as an fair and fickle sex, and never was homage infringement upon their peculiar privileges. more willingly paid to any sovereign, than The ruling families of most of the German that which has been rendered during the last States were, in this respect, in advance of eight years by ladies of every land to the their subjects. The man of letters, the artimperial Eugénie, as the Queen of Fashion ist, the poet, found readier admittance into in that gay city; but is the fair despot solely his sovereign's palace than the noble's house; responsible for the very enlarged view now and the effort of the accomplished Maximilheld as to the requirements of a lady's toi- ian of Bavaria to bring together, for mutual lette? And if the empress is to be charged advantage, the aristocracy and the learned with this, pray who, Messieurs les maris, professors and savants of his capital met is to blame for your extravagance in din- with no encouragement and little success. fers, horses, and expensive furniture? Is They stood aloof from each other, even unit the emperor's example? has it anything der the royal roof; and the beautiful wife of to do with the centralizing influences of a mediatized prince only spoke the sentirailroads ? or is it in France the result of ments of her class when she declared "that reaction? Let us look back a little. it was becoming quite disagreeable to go to court, for you met such very odd people there." It can be imagined how welcome an increase to their numbers, therefore, were the numerous families who had hitherto been content to keep petty state in the country, and who now flocked into the capitals eager for pleasure, and provided with means for the sudden increase in luxury and expense of all kinds that marked the return to tranquillity after the movements of 1848. The grand dame, who had no longer her one or two dames de compagnie (lady companions) to pay, devoted herself to her toilette as another means of maintaining a prominent position, or achieving distinction. She sent to Paris for her flowers, to Lyons for her silks; she could scarcely be seen twice The events of 1840 left most of the European States in an uncomfortable, unsettled condition more than a twelvemonth afterwards. The winter of 1849-50 saw the greater part of Germany, however, tranquillized and re-assured. The nobles flocked to the capitals, and those who visited any of the large towns of Southern Germany then, will remember that the carnival of 1850 was the gayest, the most brilliant, that had been known for years. The petty mediatized princes who had resigned to the crowns of Austria and Bavaria the little remnants of sovereign power so long jealously preserved by them, and the numerous counts and barons who had given up also the feudal rights they had retained over their tenantry, in the same dress, and, in short, the taste at home, less abroad. The solitary femme for extravagance in dress which began in de ménage who managed all the household Germany then, and which has since been work for many a small family (the heads of maintained by French example and other the house dining abroad or having their causes, was originally due, not to Eugénie's dinner sent in from some neighboring resfair face, but to a political movement, which taurateur) has been replaced by two or more had the effect of concentrating wealth in the servants; and these "domestic comforts" capital at a time when France was still un- have proved to them (as the present meaneasy under a president whose intentions she ing of their name implies) the cause of many mistrusted. domestic troubles and many domestic difficulties. They have undertaken to keep more people at a time when wages are higher and provisions dearer: as the consequence of one piece of a folly is generally another, so one piece of extravagance begets a second, and expensive dinners are taking the place of the once easy mode of seeing your friends. In no particular is there stronger evidence of increased luxury and expense, than in that of dress. With regard to France, the ruin that had followed upon the Revolution, and the want of confidence in their successive governments, had taught the French to be careful, and the example of the Citizen King and his family strengthened this disposition. Fifteen or twenty years ago it was the aim of most French families to live, not within, but below their income. The dot for the daughter was the result of yearly saving, and if there were no children to save for, the same yearly amount was spared and put by, for a rainy day. Their habit was to abjure all credit, and to take such pleasure as they could afford; and whilst we are fond of stigmatizing them as light-hearted and careless, they were in reality far more careful than we, who, making no provision for the expense of recreation, are seldom able to indulge in it without an uneasy feeling that we are hardly justified in so doing. Formerly the French lady of rank was easily satisfied, if her fortune was not large, with two silk dresses, one, either of black or some dark color, for walking, the other for her evening visiting, or receptions, and the latter she was content to vary by a change of headdress or some exquisite lace. Instead of discarding it as she does now, when it has become known to her friends, she piqued herself upon its durability, and received, as a compliment to its original value, the remarks of her friends that "it had lasted well." With her the purchase of a new gown was an event-a subject of grave consideration. A good price was given, a good article expected. The accom the lace was real and costly, the mantles and gloves accorded in color and quality, and the French lady, when dressed was consequently well dressed, suitably to her position, becomingly to herself. We English are in the main a conscientious people; we do not wish to incur debt we cannot pay; but we start in life with a notion that a certain mode of living is necessary for respectability, and that, therefore, any sacrifice must be made to obtain it. paniments were selected in the same spirit: When we find the means of compassing our ideas on this subject fall short, we too often have not the moral courage to adopt a less pretentious style of living, and, conscious that the foundations of our house are insecure, and that a storm would find us unprepared to meet it, we carry throughout our daily life, into society, as at home, a secret care which prevents our being light-hearted like the more careful, more provident French, as we knew them fifteen, or twenty years ago. We say, as we knew them; for the visitor to Paris now, will find the Parisian brow less serene, the Parisian sky less clear, the latter owing to the almost universal use of coal, which they have adopted, and with it many of our ways of living. They live more Whilst the Frenchwoman was thus simply elegant, the majority of what we call the middle classes in England were decidedly dowdy, and the higher classes far less expensive in their attire than they are now. An English lady of rank who had been eight years absent from London, returned there in the spring of 1850, after having passed the winter at the courts of Vienna and Munich. She expressed surprise at the comparative simplicity of dress at the court of St. James. A few jewels, or a spray of flowers at the back of the head, was orna If dress may be considered as an index of the taste of the age, it is not in error now, when it marks an increase of luxury and expenditure in all classes. ment enough then for the Englishwoman, | window in Paris, and, ere long, worn by whilst the Viennese or Bavarian noble lady people, who a few years before, would have was overloaded with flowers and diamonds. considered such materials beyond their But this state of affairs was not destined to means and unsuited to their station. last long. We jog on in England contentedly enough in our old ways, until some one suggests a new idea for us, which we are some time comprehending, and then we go mad upon the subject. For the last ten So much for the cost and material of modyears, we and France have certainly been ern costume: the causes that influence the playing the game of "follow my leader," cut and fashion of a dress are less easily whether in the organization of our army, determined, or reviewed. The bright-colthe improvement of our towns, the recon- ored petticoats of the present day are easily struction of our navy, or in the develop- accounted for by their convenience and ments of dress. Yes,-to answer the question warmth. The hats worn in summer came asked a little way back,-it is to French originally from Germany and Switzerland. influence, French example, we must ascribe the increased luxury and expense of dress in England. The Germans have never been so much led by Paris as we have: the Viennese long had, and maintained their own fashions; and we have seen that after 1848 the change there, in this respect, was one of the several results of bringing together the wealthy and the great. But we, who have always plenty of money to spend upon new projects, found one agreeable mode of disposing of it, was buying largely the costly productions from the looms of Lyons, Lille, etc., and all the articles of luxury for which the manufactures of France are renowned, and which the establishment of the empire seemed to rouse from stagnation and depression. 66 Whatever the world may think of Louis Napoleon's celebrated coup-d'état, to France it at once restored confidence. The people instinctively felt that whatever the empire might be to Europe, to them it meant peace -peace at home, peace amongst themselves. L'empire c'est la paix," was susceptible of many readings, but that most agreeable to France was, no more revolutions, no more ideal governments. The empire is a fact. This feeling of confidence infused new life into every branch of trade; and the first care of the emperor was to strengthen this spirit of activity, and to keep down the restless spirits of the manufacturing towns by promoting employment for them. He found a most efficient ally in the empress; and the richest brocades and costliest moirés, which had hitherto been sparingly manufactured for a few of the wealthy only, were soon lavishly displayed in every shop Although now sadly shorn of their sheltering proportions, and altered from their ugly but useful mushroom shapes, they recommend themselves for various reasons; they are becoming, more durable and cooler in summer than bonnets: their adoption is therefore easily understood, and the burnous, the Spanish mantilla, carry their own history with them. But how is it that we have one year a tight sleeve like a man's coat, and another a hanging one like that of a Chinese mandarin? Who lengthens the cloaks of the fair sex until they almost touch the ground one year, and the following season cuts them off below the waist? This is a mysterious subject. We are in the habit, when we don't exactly know what a man's occupation is, of saying, "Oh, he has something to do in the City." In the same way, all we know about these changes is that they are effected in Paris. We have heard that there are individuals there whose sole occupation it is, to devise a new pattern, invent a new trimming; but on what principles they proceed we know not. Every now and then we discover that some great novelty is only what our grandmothers wore before us. The adoption or rejection of a fashion, however, depends very much upon the taste and character of individuals who, from their rank or wealth, exercise an influence in society. Accordingly, in the present day, the empress has been made responsible for much. When Eugénie de Montijo espoused Napoleon III., envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness were arrayed against her. She was not royal; she was not French; she rode on horseback; she had English |