ate, especially without head-dress. On gala
nights, ball dresses are worn in the boxes and head-dresses and as many
jewels as one chooses--or has.

=THE TEA-GOWN=

Every one knows that a tea-gown is a hybrid between a wrapper and a ball
dress. It has always a train and usually long flowing sleeves; is made of
rather gorgeous materials and goes on easily, and its chief use is not for
wear at the tea-table so much as for dinner alone with one's family.

It can, however, very properly be put on for tea, and if one is dining at
home, kept on for dinner. Otherwise a lady is apt to take tea in whatever
dress she had on for luncheon, and dress after tea for dinner.

One does not go out to dine in a tea-gown except in the house of a member
of one's family or a most intimate friend. One would wear a tea-gown in
one's own house in receiving a guest to whose house one would wear a
dinner dress.

=WHEN IN DOUBT=

There is one rule that is fairly safe to follow: When in doubt, wear the
plainer dress. It is always better far to be under-dressed than
over-dressed. If you don't know whether to put on a ball dress or a dinner
dress, wear the dinner dress. Or, whether to wear cloth or brocade to a
luncheon, wear the cloth.

=ON THE STREET=

Your tea-gowns, since they are never worn in public, can literally be as
bizarre as you please, and if you are driving in a closed motor, you can
also wear an "original" type of dress. But in walking on the street,--if
you care to be taken for a well-bred person--never wear anything that is
exaggerated. If skirts are short, don't wear them two inches shorter than
any one else's; if they are long, don't go down the street dragging a
train and sweeping the dirt up on the under-flouncings. (Let us hope
_that_ fashion never comes back!) Don't wear too much jewelry; it is in
bad taste in the first place, and in the second, is a temptation to a
thief. And don't under any circumstances, distort your figure into a
grotesque shape.

=COUNTRY CLOTHES=

Nothing so marks the "person who doesn't know" as inappropriate choice of
clothes. To wear elaborate clothes out of doors in the country, is quite
as out of place as to parade "sports" clothes on the streets in town.

It is safe to say that "sport" clothes are appropriate country
clothes--especially for all young people. Elderly ladies, needless to say,
should not don "sporting eccentricities" nor wear sweaters to lunch
parties; but sensible