rl of our set
that dresses as nicely as you do, except Emma Seyton, and her father,
you know, has no end of income."

"Nonsense, Jenny," 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 Jenny, "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 it's silly, but we all bow down before it; we
are afraid of our lives before it; and who makes all this and sets it
going? The Paris milliners, the Empress, or who?"

"The question where fashions come from is like the question where pins
go to," said Pheasant. "Think of the thousands and millions of pins
that are being used every year, and not one of them worn out. Where do
they all go to? One would expect to find a pin mine somewhere."

"Victor Hugo says they go into the sewers in Paris," said Jenny.

"And the fashions come from a source about as pure," said I, from the
next room.

"Bless me, Jenny, do tell us if your father has been listening to us
all this time!" was the next exclamation; and forthwith there was a
whir and rustle of the silken wings, as the whole troop fluttered into
my study.

"Now, Mr. Crowfield, you are too bad!" said Humming-Bird, as s