ing where he would stop.

We supposed that it must be an evidence of Mrs. Jameson's own advance
in improvement that she had adopted such a singular costume,
according to our ideas. She was dressed no longer in the rich fabrics
which had always aroused our admiration, but, instead, wore a gown of
brown cloth cut short enough to expose her ankles, which were,
however, covered with brown gaiters made of cloth like her dress. She
wore a shirt-waist of brown silk, and a little cutaway jacket. Mrs.
Jameson looked as if she were attired for riding the wheel, but that
was a form of exercise to which she was by no means partial either
for herself or for her daughters. I could never understand just why
she was not partial to wheeling. Wheels were not as fashionable then
as now, but Mrs. Jameson was always quite up with, if not in advance
of, her age.

Neither of us admired her in this costume. Mrs. Jameson was very
stout, and the short skirt was not, to our way of thinking, becoming.

"Don't you think that I have adopted a very sensible and becoming
dress for country wear?" said she, and Louisa and I did not know what
to say. We did not wish to be untruthful and we disliked to be
impolite. Finally, Louisa said faintly that she thought it must be
very convenient for wear in muddy weather, and I echoed her.

"Of course, you don't have to hold it up at all," said I.

"It is the only costume for wear in the country," said Mrs. Jameson,
"and I hope to have all the women in Linnville wearing it before the
summer is over."

Louisa and I glanced at each other in dismay. I think that we both
had mental pictures of some of the women whom we knew in that
costume. Some of our good, motherly, village faces, with their
expressions of homely dignity and Christian decorousness, looking at
us from under that jaunty English walking-hat, in lieu of their sober
bonnets, presented themselves to our imaginations, and filled us with
amusement and consternation.

"Only think how Mrs. Sim White would look," Louisa said after Mrs.
Jameson had gone, and we both saw Mrs. White going down the street in
that costume indicative of youthful tramps over long stretches of
road, and mad spins on wheels, instead of her nice, softly falling
black cashmere skirts covering decently her snowy stockings and her
cloth congress boots; and we shuddered.

"Of course, she would have to wear gaiters like Mrs. Jameson," said
Louisa, "but it would be dreadful."

"We