l-bearings, so that she can see every part of her skirts!
And she gets all her gowns from Paris, four times a year--she says
there are four seasons now, instead of two! I thought that my new
clothes amounted to something, but my goodness, when I saw hers!"

Then Alice went on to describe the unpacking of fourteen trunks, which
had just come up from the custom-house that day. Mrs. Virginia's
couturiere had her photograph and her colouring (represented in actual
paints) and a figure made up from exact measurements; and so every one
of the garments would fit her perfectly. Each one came stuffed with
tissue paper and held in place by a lattice-work of tape; and attached
to each gown was a piece of the fabric, from which her shoemaker would
make shoes or slippers. There were street-costumes and opera-wraps,
robes de chambre and tea-gowns, reception-dresses, and wonderful ball
and dinner gowns. Most of these latter were to be embroidered with
jewellery before they were worn, and imitation jewels were sewn on, to
show how the real ones were to be placed. These garments were made of
real lace or Parisian embroidery, and the prices paid for them were
almost impossible to credit. Some of them were made of lace so filmy
that the women who made them had to sit in damp cellars, because the
sunlight would dry the fine threads and they would break; a single yard
of the lace represented forty days of labour. There was a pastel
"batiste de soie" Pompadour robe, embroidered with cream silk flowers,
which had cost one thousand dollars. There was a hat to go with it,
which had cost a hundred and twenty-five, and shoes of grey
antelope-skin, buckled with mother-of-pearl, which had cost forty.
There was a gorgeous and intricate ball-dress of pale green chiffon
satin, with orchids embroidered in oxidized silver, and a long court
train, studded with diamonds--and this had cost six thousand dollars
without the jewels! And there was an auto-coat which had cost three
thousand; and an opera-wrap made in Leipsic, of white unborn baby lamb,
lined with ermine, which had cost twelve thousand--with a thousand
additional for a hat to match! Mrs. Landis thought nothing of paying
thirty-five dollars for a lace handkerchief, or sixty dollars for a
pair of spun silk hose, or two hundred dollars for a pearl and
gold-handled parasol trimmed with cascades of chiffon, and made, like
her hats, one for each gown.

"And she insists that these things are worth the