r each dress that she has ever sold you.
"Did Madame like her white velvet?" she coos. "Was it not most useful? Was
not her black lace charming? And the bisque cloth--surely Madame had found
great satisfaction in wearing the bisque cloth?" But your ears are as
stone to her blandishments! As a traveling suit, bisque-colored cloth had
not been serviceable! Black lace with a cerise velvet under petticoat
might be effective at Armenonville, but it had seemed queer, to say the
least, at the tennis match in August. No, you are at last immune from any
of those sudden attacks of new fashion fever that result in loss of
judgment. You open your little book and consult your list.

"I should like," you say, "a navy blue serge trimmed with black braid or
satin or something like that; a black crepe de chine absolutely plain; I
really need nothing else."

You do not look at Mile. Marie's crestfallen face, you watch the
procession of models. But the old spell works. Besides zebra stripes and
gold shot with cerise and purple, you think an emerald green charmeuse is
really a perfect substitute for the plain black crepe de chine you had in
mind. You show that you are hypnotized by remarking absently, "It is the
color of the grass."

Instantly, Mlle. Marie, the most skillful _vendeuse_ in Paris, becomes
radiant. "Listen, Madame," she says to you in that insinuating,
confidential, yet humbly ingratiating manner of hers. "Let me explain,
Madame,--the idea of dress this year is altogether idyllic! Never has
there been such charming return to nature. The great originator of our
house has taken his suggestion--but yes! from the little animals of the
fields and woods--from Nature herself! Our dresses this year are intended
to follow the example of all the little animals dressed to match their
backgrounds. Is not that thought exquisite? Is not that delicious? Is an
emerald lizard conspicuous in the tropics? Is a zebra even seen in patches
of sun and shade? And in the snow, think of all the little animals who put
on white coats in winter! Obviously white is the color intended for winter
wear. And for the spring, green. Emerald green assuredly. It is as Madame
herself said, the color of the grass. The emerald charmeuse on a lawn in
summer would be a poem of harmony. The cerise for afternoons at sunset;
this orange shading into coral embroidery to wear beside the fire. The
dark blue chiffon embroidered in silver is for night. All the colors that
M