a goodly size, fashioned
with patchwork into many curious devices and ostentatiously worn on the
outside. These, in fact, were convenient receptacles where all good
housewives carefully stored away such things as they wished to have at
hand, by which means they often came to be incredibly crammed; and I
remember there was a story current when I was a boy that the lady of
Wouter Van Twiller once had occasion to empty her right pocket in search
of a wooden ladle, when the contents filled a couple of corn baskets,
and the utensil was discovered lying among some rubbish in one corner.
But we must not give too much faith to all these stories, the anecdotes
of those remote periods being very subject to exaggeration.

Besides these notable pockets, they likewise wore scissors and
pincushions suspended from their girdles by red ribbons, or among the
more opulent and showy classes by brass, and even silver,
chains--indubitable tokens of thrifty housewives and industrious
spinsters. I cannot say much in vindication of the shortness of the
petticoats: it doubtless was introduced for the purpose of giving the
stockings a chance to be seen, which were generally of blue worsted with
magnificent red clocks, or perhaps to display a well-turned ankle and a
neat, though serviceable foot, set off by a high-heeled leathern shoe
with a large and splendid silver buckle. Thus we find that the gentle
sex in all ages have shown the same disposition to infringe a little
upon the laws of decorum in order to betray a lurking beauty or gratify
an innocent love of finery.

From the sketch here given it will be seen that our good grandmothers
differed considerably in their ideas of a fine figure from their
scantily dressed descendants of the present day. A fine lady in those
times waddled under more clothes, even on a fair summer's day, than
would have clad the whole bevy of a modern ball-room. Nor were they the
less admired by the gentlemen in consequence thereof. On the contrary,
the greatness of a lover's passion seemed to increase in proportion to
the magnitude of its object, and a voluminous damsel, arrayed in a dozen
of petticoats, was declared by a Low Dutch sonneteer of the province to
be radiant as a sunflower and luxuriant as a full-blown cabbage. Certain
it is that in those days the heart of a lover could not contain more
than one lady at a time; whereas the heart of a modern gallant has often
room enough to accommodate half a dozen. The