e bodice. An artist can
conceive and work out a perfect adjustment of what in the mind and hand
of the inexperienced is not to be attempted. Your French dressmaker
combines real and imitation laces in a fascinating manner. That same
artist's instinct could trim a gown with emerald pastes and hang real
gems of the same in the ears, using brooch and chain, but you would find
the green glass garniture swept from the proximity of the gems and used
in some telling manner to score as _trimming_,--not to compete as
jewels. We have seen the skirt of French gowns of black tulle or net,
caught up with great rhinestone swans, and at the same time a diamond
chain and diamond earrings worn. Nothing could have been more chic.

We recall another case of the discreet combining of gems and paste. It
was at the Spring races, Longchamps, Paris. The decorative woman we have
never forgotten, had marvellous gold-red hair, wore a costume of golden
brown chiffon, a close toque (to show her hair) of brown; long topaz
drops hung from her ears, set in hand-wrought Etruscan gold, and her
shell lorgnettes hung from a topaz chain. Now note that on her toque and
her girdle were buckles made of topaz glass, obviously not real topaz
and because made to look like milliner's garniture and not jeweler's
work, they had great style and were as beautiful of their kind as the
real stones.

PLATE XII

The portrait of an Englishwoman painted during the
Napoleonic period.

She wears the typical Empire gown, cloak, and bonnet.

The original of this portrait is the same referred to
elsewhere as having moistened her muslin gowns to make them
cling to her, in Grecian folds.

Among her admiring friends was Lord Byron.

A descendant who allows the use of the charming portrait,
explains that the fair lady insisted upon being painted in
her bonnet because her curling locks were short--a result of
typhoid fever.

[Illustration: _Costume of Empire Period
An English Portrait_]

CHAPTER IX

WOMAN DECORATIVE IN HER BOUDOIR

By the way, do you know that boudoir originally meant pouting room, a
place where the ceremonious grande dame of the Louis might relax and
express a ruffled mood, if she would? Which only serves to prove that
even the definition of words alter with fashion, for we imagine that our
supinely relaxed modern beauty, of the country club type, has on the
whole more self-control th