d spend a good deal of
it in this way," said Pheasant. "I can imagine such completeness of
toilet as I have never seen. How I would like the means to show what I
could do! My life, now, is perpetual disquiet. I always feel shabby. My
things must all be bought at hap-hazard, as they can be got out of my
poor little allowance,--and things are getting so horridly dear! Only
think of it, girls! gloves at two and a quarter! and boots at seven,
eight, and ten dollars! and then, as you say, the fashions changing so!
Why, I bought a sack last fall and gave forty dollars for it, and this
winter I'm wearing it, to be sure, but it has no style at all,--looks
quite antiquated!"

"Now I say," said Jennie, "that you are really morbid on the subject of
dress; you are fastidious and particular and exacting in your ideas in a
way that really ought to be put down. There is not a girl of our set
that dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,
you know, has no end of income."

"Nonsense, Jennie," said Pheasant. "I think I really look like a beggar;
but then, I bear it as well as I can, because, you see, I know papa does
all for us he can, and I won't be extravagant. But I do think, as
Humming-Bird says, that it would be a great relief to give it up
altogether and retire from the world; or, as Cousin John says, climb a
tree and pull it up after you, and so be in peace."

"Well," said Jennie, "all this seems to have come on since the war. It
seems to me that not only has everything doubled in price, but all the
habits of the world seem to require that you shall have double the
quantity of everything. Two or three years ago a good balmoral skirt was
a fixed fact; it was a convenient thing for sloppy, unpleasant weather.
But now, dear me! there is no end to them. They cost fifteen and twenty
dollars; and girls that I know have one or two every season, besides all
sorts of quilled and embroidered and ruffled and tucked and flounced
ones. Then, in dressing one's hair, what a perfect overflow there is of
all manner of waterfalls, and braids, and rats and mice, and curls, and
combs; when three or four years ago we combed our own hair innocently
behind our ears, and put flowers in it, and thought we looked nicely at
our evening parties! I don't believe we look any better now, when we are
dressed, than we did then,--so what's the use?"

"Well, did you ever see such a tyranny as this of fashion?" said
Humming-Bird. "We know