now whether to be sorry for these men or not. It must be
lovely not to agonize and plan and worry to have everything the best
of its kind. I would like to take in only the effect, and never know
why I was pleased. Too much analysis is death to unmitigated rapture.
You always are haunted by knowing exactly what is lacking, and just
how it could be remedied. But these dear men are singularly deluded in
many ways, and upon these delusions clever women play, as a master
plays upon an organ. And young girls, who have not had time to study
into the philosophy of it--how should the poor things know that
clothes have any philosophy?--as usual, have to suffer for it.

One of these delusions is the "simple white muslin" delusion. When a
man speaks of a "simple white muslin" in the softly admiring tone
which he generally adopts to go with it, he means anything on earth in
the line of a thin, light stuff which produces in his mind the effect
of youth and innocence. A ball-dress or a cotton morning-gown is to
him a "simple white muslin."

Now a word with you, you dear, unsophisticated man. I have heard you,
with the sound of your hundred-and-fifty-dollar-a-month salary ringing
in your ears, gurgle and splash about a girl who wears "simple white
muslins" to balls; and I have heard you set down, as extravagant, and
too rich for your purse, the girl who wears silk. There is no more
extravagant or troublesome gown in the world than what you call a
"simple white muslin." In the first place, it never is muslin, unless
it is Paris muslin, which is no joke, if you are thinking of paying
for it yourself, as it necessitates a silk lining, which costs more
than the outside. If it is trimmed with lace, that would take as much
of your salary as the coal for all winter would come to. If trimmed
with ribbons, they must be changed often to freshen the gown, whose
only beauty is its freshness. Deliver me from a soiled or stringy
white party-dress! If it can be worn five times during the winter, the
girl is either a careful dancer or else a wallflower. In either case,
after every wearing she must have it pressed out and put away as
daintily as if it were egg-shells, all of which is the greatest
nuisance on earth. Often such a gown is torn all to pieces the first
time it is worn. Scores of "simple white muslin" ball-gowns at a
hundred dollars apiece are only worn once or twice.

Now take the "extravagant" girl with her flowered taffeta silk, or
pla