d everything to lose, and nothing save the bitterest
experience to gain. A stuffed kitten, so young and innocent that its
eyes were still blue and bleary, would have been more appropriate on
Eva's bonnet, and just as pretty.

In _The Fortunes of Oliver Horn_, Margaret Grant wears a particularly
striking costume:

"The cloth skirt came to her ankles, which were covered with
yarn stockings, and her feet were encased in shoes that gave
him the shivers, the soles being as thick as his own and
the leather as tough.

"Her blouse was of grey flannel, belted to the waist by a
cotton saddle-girth, white and red, and as broad as her
hand. The tam-o-shanter was coarse and rough, evidently
home-made, and not at all like McFudd's, which was as soft
as the back of a kitten and without a seam."

With all due respect to Mr. Smith, one must insist that Margaret's
shoes were all right as regards material and build. She would have
been more comfortable if they had been "high-necked" shoes, and, in
that case, the yarn hosiery would not have troubled him, but that is a
minor detail. The quibble comes at the belt, and knowing that Margaret
was an artist, we must be sure that Mr. Smith was mistaken. It may
have been one of the woven cotton belts, not more than two inches
wide, which, for a dizzy moment, were at the height of fashion, and
then tottered and fell, but a "saddle-girth"--never!

In that charming morceau, _The Inn of the Silver Moon_, Mr. Viele puts
his heroine into plaid stockings and green knickerbockers--an
outrageous costume truly, even for wheeling.

As if recognising his error, and, with veritable masculine
stubbornness, refusing to admit it, Mr. Viele goes on to say that the
knickerbockers were "tailor-made!" And thereby he makes a bad matter
very much worse.

In _The Wings of the Morning_, Iris, in spite of the storm through
which the _Sirdar_ vainly attempts to make its way, appears throughout
in a "lawn dress"--white, undoubtedly, since all sorts and conditions
of men profess to admire white lawn!

How cold the poor girl must have been! And even if she could have been
so inappropriately gowned on shipboard, she had plenty of time to put
on a warm and suitable tailor-made gown before she was shipwrecked.
This is sheer fatuity, for any one with Mr. Tracy's abundant ingenuity
could easily have contrived ruin for the tailored gown in time for
Iris to assume masculine gar