as astonishing
how well that bust would have answered for the portrait of a lady of
Thirty-fourth street, New York, or the wife of a gentleman in
Springfield, Ohio. The head and face were just such a head and face as
I had often seen, and the countenance even seemed familiar to me.

But dress makes all the difference in the world. Had I met that lady
attired in her flowing Roman garments, with her golden head-dress and
her sandaled feet, I should have had no thought of Thirty-fourth street,
or Springfield, Ohio.

And so down the whole line of ages you can tell, pretty nearly, when a
man or a woman lived, if you can but get an idea of his or her clothes.

The next thing which strikes most of us when looking at the pictures of
old-time people, is a feeling of wonder how they ever could have been
willing to make such scarecrows of themselves.

To be sure, we are willing to admire the flowing robes of Greece and
Rome, although we feel quite sure that our style of dress is much more
sensible, and we have an admiration for a soldier clad in armor, as well
as for the noblemen and gentry who figured, some hundreds of years ago,
in their splendid velvets and laces, their feathers and cocked hats, and
their diamond-hilted swords.

But, as a rule, the garments of our ancestors appear very ridiculous to
us. If we did not have good reasons for belief to the contrary, we
should be very apt to consider them a set of fools.

It even seems a little wonderful that people should be able to invent
such curious fashions of dressing themselves.

Think, for instance, of the wife of Jean Van Eyck, a celebrated old
Dutch painter, who was willing to dress her hair so that she looked like
a cat, and, moreover, had her portrait taken in that style, so that
future generations might see what a guy she was!

Yes, the picture painted over five hundred years ago hangs to-day in the
Academy of Bruges, and the staidest little Belgians laugh when they
look at it. You may see it yourselves some day, but, if not, you can at
least enjoy this excellent copy, which has been engraved for ST.
NICHOLAS from a photograph of the painting. If you look at her face, you
will see that in feature she is very much like an ordinary woman of the
present day. There is nothing at all distinctive about her countenance.
As far as that is concerned, she might just as well have lived now as at
any other time.

But if she were to appear in an ordinary evening company dr