out of Boston parlors, I
trust. Why, there isn't a beast or a bird that would drag its tail
through the dirt in the way these creatures do their dresses. Because
a queen or a duchess wears long robes on great occasions, a
maid-of-all-work or a factory-girl thinks she must make herself a
nuisance by trailing through the street, picking up and carrying about
with her--pah! that's what I call getting vulgarity into your bones and
marrow. Making believe be what you are not is the essence of vulgarity.
Show over dirt is the one attribute of vulgar people. If any man can
walk behind one of these women and see what she rakes up as she goes,
and not feel squeamish, he has got a tough stomach. I wouldn't let one
of 'em into my room without serving 'em as David served Saul at the cave
in the wilderness,--cut off his skirts, Sir! cut off his skirts!

I suggested, that I had seen some pretty stylish ladies who offended in
the way he condemned.

Stylish _women_, I don't doubt,--said the little gentleman.--Don't tell
me that a true lady ever sacrifices the duty of keeping all about her
sweet and clean to the wish of making a vulgar show. I won't believe it
of a lady. There are some things that no fashion has any right to touch,
and cleanliness is one of those things. If a woman wishes to show that
her husband or her father has got money, which she wants and means to
spend, but doesn't know how, let her buy a yard or two of silk and pin
it to her dress when she goes out to walk, but let her unpin it before
she goes into the house;--there may be poor women that will think it
worth disinfecting. It is an insult to a respectable laundress to carry
such things into a house for her to deal with. I don't like the Bloomers
any too well,--in fact, I never saw but one, and she--or he, or
it--had a mob of boys after her, or whatever you call the creature, as
if she had been a----

The little gentleman stopped short,--flushed somewhat, and looked round
with that involuntary, suspicious glance which the subjects of any
bodily misfortune are very apt to cast round them. His eye wandered
over the company, none of whom, excepting myself and one other, had,
probably, noticed the movement. They fell at last on Iris,--his next
neighbor, you remember.

--We know in a moment, on looking suddenly at a person, if that person's
eyes have been fixed on us. Sometimes we are conscious of it _before_
we turn so as to see the person. Strange secrets of curi