at they will not
allow themselves to be swept into the vortex of extravagance, whatever
other people may do."

"Do you know," said Miss Featherstone, "I believe your papa is right?
I was calling on the oldest Miss Fielder the other day, and she told
me that she positively felt ashamed to go looking as she did, but that
she really did feel the necessity of economy. 'Perhaps we might afford
to spend more than some others,' she said; 'but it's so much better to
give the money to the Sanitary Commission!'"

"Furthermore," said I, "I am going to put forth another paradox, and
say that very likely there are some people looking on my girls, and
commenting on them for extravagance in having three hats, even though
made over, and contrived from last year's stock."

"They can't know anything about it, then," said Jenny decisively;
"for, certainly, nobody can be decent and invest less in millinery
than Marianne and I do."

"When I was a young lady," said my wife, "a well-dressed girl got her
a new bonnet in the spring, and another in the fall; that was the
extent of her purchases in this line. A second-best bonnet, left of
last year, did duty to relieve and preserve the best one. My father
was accounted well-to-do, but I had no more, and wanted no more. I
also bought myself, every spring, two pair of gloves, a dark and a
light pair, and wore them through the summer, and another two through
the winter; one or two pair of white kids, carefully cleaned, carried
me through all my parties. Hats had not been heard of, and the great
necessity which requires two or three new ones every spring and fall
had not arisen. Yet I was reckoned a well-appearing girl, who dressed
liberally. Now, a young lady who has a waterfall-hat, an oriole-hat,
and a jockey must still be troubled with anxious cares for her spring
and fall and summer and winter bonnets,--all the variety will not take
the place of them. Gloves are bought by the dozen; and as to dresses,
there seems to be no limit to the quantity of material and trimming
that may be expended upon them. When I was a young lady, seventy-five
dollars a year was considered by careful parents a liberal allowance
for a daughter's wardrobe. I had a hundred, and was reckoned rich; and
I sometimes used a part to make up the deficiencies in the allowance
of Sarah Evans, my particular friend, whose father gave her only
fifty. We all thought that a very scant allowance; yet she generally
made a very prett