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A FASHION ITEM--[Written about 1867.]
At General G----'s reception the other night, the most fashionably
dressed lady was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin dress, plain in front
but with a good deal of rake to it--to the train, I mean; it was said to
be two or three yards long. One could see it creeping along the floor
some little time after the woman was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a white
bodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck,
with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves. She had
on a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of that
barren waste of neck and shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangled
chaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactly
bound and plaited into a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore was
canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvet
crupper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around a
hairpin on the top of her head. Her whole top hamper was neat and
becoming. She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but it
faded out by degrees in an unaccountable way. However, it is not lost
for good. I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. (I stood
near the door when she squeezed out with the throng.) There were other
ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen. I would
gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.
187
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