only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be
beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it
myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about
one's toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your
bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being
behindhand! It is really too fatiguing.

"Well," said Jennie, "I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be
in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every one;
nobody wants to have people say, 'Do see what an old-times,
rubbishy-looking creature _that_ is.' And now, with my small means and
conscience, (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don't wish to
spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one's self fresh
and tasteful,) I find my dress quite a fatiguing care."

"Well, now, girls," said Humming-Bird, "do you really know, I have
sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this
labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have
nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem
to me as if it would be a perfect repose,--only one is a Protestant, you
know."

Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in the
little circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. But Dove
took it up.

"Well, really," she said, "when dear Mr. S---- preaches those saintly
sermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of an
unworldly life, and calls on us to live for something purer and higher
than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me
a mere sham,--that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and
being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and
prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life,
all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord,
braid, and buttons,--the next fashion of bonnets,--how to make my old
dresses answer instead of new,--how to keep the air of the world, while
in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there's
anything I detest it is hypocrisy; and sometimes the life I lead looks
like it. But how to get out of it? what to do?"

"I'm sure," said Humming-Bird, "that taking care of my clothes and going
into company is, frankly, _all_ I do. If I go to parties, as other girls
do, and make calls, and keep dressed,--you know papa is not ric