antime Elodie complimented the _citoyenne_ Thevenin on her red velvet
toque and white gown. The actress repaid the compliment by
congratulating her two companions on their toilets and advising them how
to do better still; the thing, she said, was to be more sparing in
ornaments and trimmings.

"A woman can never be dressed too simply," was her dictum. "We see this
on the stage, where the costume should allow every pose to be
appreciated. That is its true beauty and it needs no other."

"You are right, my dear," replied Elodie. "Only there is nothing more
expensive in dress than simplicity. It is not always out of bad taste we
add frills and furbelows; sometimes it is to save our pockets."

They discussed eagerly the autumn fashions,--frocks entirely plain and
short-waisted.

"So many women disfigure themselves through following the fashion!"
declared Rose Thevenin. "In dressing every woman should study her own
figure."

"There is nothing beautiful save draperies that follow the lines of the
figure and fall in folds," put in Gamelin. "Everything that is cut out
and sewn is hideous."

These sentiments, more appropriate in a treatise of Winckelmann's than
in the mouth of a man talking to Parisiennes, met with the scorn they
deserved, being entirely disregarded.

"For the winter," observed Elodie, "they are making quilted gowns in
Lapland style of taffeta and muslin, and coats _a la Zulime_,
round-waisted and opening over a stomacher _a la Turque_."

"Nasty cheap things," declared the actress, "you can buy them ready
made. Now I have a little seamstress who works like an angel and is not
dear; I'll send her to see you, my dear."

So they prattled on trippingly, eagerly discussing and appraising
different fine fabrics--striped taffeta, self-coloured china silk,
muslin, gauze, nankeen.

And old Brotteaux, as he listened to them, thought with a pensive
pleasure of these veils that hide women's charms and change
incessantly,--how they last for a few years to be renewed eternally like
the flowers of the field. And his eyes, as they wandered from the three
pretty women to the cornflowers and the poppies in the wheat, were wet
with smiling tears.

They reached Orangis about nine o'clock and stopped before the inn, the
_Auberge de la Cloche_, where the Poitrines, husband and wife, offered
accommodation for man and beast. The _citoyen_ Blaise, who had repaired
any disorder in his dress, helped the _citoyennes_ to aligh