Sketches New and Old

  A FASHION ITEM--[Written about 1867.]

  At General G----'s reception the other night, the most fashionablydressed lady was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin dress, plain in frontbut with a good deal of rake to it--to the train, I mean; it was said tobe two or three yards long. One could see it creeping along the floorsome little time after the woman was gone. Mrs. C. wore also a whitebodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck,with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves. She hadon a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of thatbarren waste of neck and shoulders. Her hair was frizzled into a tangledchaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactlybound and plaited into a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore wascanted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvetcrupper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around ahairpin on the top of her head. Her whole top hamper was neat andbecoming. She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but itfaded out by degrees in an unaccountable way. However, it is not lostfor good. I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. (I stoodnear the door when she squeezed out with the throng.) There were otherladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen. I wouldgladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.