nd whose position in society requires them to be well dressed.

What then is the reason why dress has become so expensive? Is it
because the materials which are in use are costly, or is it because
the needlewomen are better paid, and, wages being higher, dressmakers'
charges are also higher in proportion? We do not believe that either
of these are the cause; but simply that a larger quantity is required,
and that variety has become a "sine-qua-non." Some years ago the cost
of a silk dress was about half what it is now,--not because the price
of silk has increased, but because a much larger quantity is required.
Perhaps of the two, silk is cheaper than it used to be; but where
ten and twelve yards sufficed, twenty and twenty-three are scarcely
sufficient. Then the variety that is considered indispensable adds
to the cost of dress. Where three or four dresses constituted the
wardrobe of many, three times that number are now considered a scanty
supply. Some ladies do not like to wear the same dress twice at the
same place; and, if they visit in the country, take with them luggage
enough for a twelvemonth, and appear daily, and, in some instances,
three times a day, in some fresh costume. It may perhaps be said
that these are exceptional cases, but they are not so. Ladies-maids,
servants, and even village girls have more gowns now than persons of
the same class had formerly. This adds to the cost of dress, and
makes it altogether a more expensive affair than it used to be. Our
fore-mothers who rejoiced in farthingales had, no doubt, the most
costly attire, but it lasted longer, and became the inheritance of
children and children's children; besides which their wardrobes were
not by any means so expensive as that of a "grande dame" of 1875.

Materials are an important element in the matter of dress, and we
propose, in the few remarks we shall make on the subject of expense,
to offer some suggestions which shall tend to make it less.

In the first place every _young_ lady is without excuse who spends a
large sum annually upon her dress, for she possesses in her youth that
which makes the most simple and inexpensive attire the most suitable
and becoming. Everything is appropriate to youth. The freshest flowers
of the garden, the plainest muslins, tarlatans and tulles do not come
amiss. In the country fresh flowers are more admissible than those
that are artificial. In London it is the reverse. The heat of a
crowded ball-room