e
wears no rayonne. A silver pin holds her meurtriers, and the fashion
suits better than did the creve-coeurs. One hand holds her Saxon
green muffetee, under one arm is her chapeau-bras. She is beautiful,
she needs no plumpers, and she regards us kindly with her watchet
eyes.'

A lady of this date would read this and enjoy it, just as a lady of
to-day would understand modern dress language, which is equally
peculiar to the mere man. For example, this one of the Queen of
Spain's hats from her trousseau (curiously enough a trousseau is a
little bundle):

'The hat is a paille d'Italie trimmed with a profusion of pink roses,
accompanied by a pink chiffon ruffle fashioned into masses
bouillonnee arranged at intervals and circled with wreaths of shaded
roses.'

[Illustration: {Two women of the time of William and Mary}]

The modern terms so vaguely used are shocking, and the descriptive
names given to colours by dress-artists are horrible beyond
belief--such as Watteau pink and elephant grey, not to speak of
Sevres-blue cherries.

However, the female mind delights in such jargon and hotch-potch.

Let me be kind enough to translate our William and Mary fashion
language. 'Weeds' is a term still in use in 'widow's weeds,' meaning
the entire dress appearance of a woman. A 'figuretto gown looped and
puffed with the monte-la-haut' is a gown of figured material gathered
into loops over the petticoat and stiffened out with wires
'monte-la-haut.' The 'echelle' is a stomacher laced with ribbons in
rungs like a ladder. Her 'pinner' is her apron. The 'commode' is the
wire frame over which the curls are arranged, piled up in high masses
over the forehead. The 'top-not' is a large bow worn at the top of the
commode; and the 'fontage' or 'tower' is a French arrangement of
alternate layers of lace and ribbon raised one above another about
half a yard high. It was invented in the time of Louis XIV., about
1680, by Mademoiselle Fontage. The 'rayonne' is a cloth hood pinned in
a circle. The 'meurtriers,' or murderers, are those twists in the hair
which tie or unloose the arrangements of curls; and the
'creve-coeurs' are the row of little forehead curls of the previous
reign. A 'muffetee' is a little muff, and a 'chapeau-bras' is a hat
never worn, but made to be carried under the arm by men or women; for
the men hated to disarrange their wigs.

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of William and Mary}]

'Plumpers' were artificial