making costumes entirely of crepe now, puffed and plaited, and extremely
stylish. I saw one that would suit you well. You may think that a
costume for deep mourning made with puffs would be a trifle LOUD, but
that depends upon tastes. The Duchess de Veljo wore one only eleven days
after her husband's death; and she allowed some of her hair, which is
superb, to fall over her shoulders, a la pleureuse, and the effect was
extremely touching." Was Madame de Fondege speaking sincerely? There
could be no doubt of it. Her features, which had been distorted with
anger when the General took it into his head to order the bottle of
Bordeaux, had regained their usual placidity of expression, and had even
brightened a little. "I am entirely at your service, my dear, if you
wish any shopping done," she continued. "And if you are not quite
pleased with your dressmaker, I will take you to mine, who works like an
angel. But how absurd I am. You will of course employ Van Klopen. I go
to him occasionally myself, but only on great occasions. Between you and
me, I think him a trifle too high in his charges."

Mademoiselle Marguerite could scarcely repress a smile. "I must confess,
madame, that from my infancy I have been in the habit of making almost
all my dresses myself."

The General's wife raised her eyes to Heaven in real or feigned
astonishment. "Yourself!" she repeated four or five times, as if to make
sure that she had heard aright. "Yourself! That is incomprehensible!
You, the daughter of a man who possessed an income of five or six
hundred thousand francs a year! Still I know that poor M. de Chalusse,
though unquestionably a very worthy and excellent man, was peculiar in
some of his ideas."

"Excuse me, madame. What I did, I did for my own pleasure."

But this assertion exceeded Madame de Fondege's powers of comprehension.
"Impossible!" she murmured, "impossible! But, my poor child, what did
you do for fashions--for patterns?"

The immense importance she attached to the matter was so manifest that
Marguerite could not refrain from smiling. "I was probably not a very
close follower of the fashions," she replied. "The dress that I am
wearing now----."

"Is very pretty, my child, and it becomes you extremely; that's the
truth. Only, to be frank, I must confess that this style is no longer
worn--no--not at all. You must have your new dresses made in quite a
different way."

"But I already have more dresses than I need, madame.