nto the hat itself; this hat is generally
jewelled, and covered with rich material. The veils are attached to
these hats in several ways; either they float down behind from the
centre of the crown of the hat, or they are sewn on to the base
of the hat, and are supported on wires, so as to shade the face,
making a roof over it, pointed in front and behind, or flat across the
front and bent into a point behind, or circular. Take two circles of
wire, one the size of the base of your hat and the other larger, and
dress your linen or thin silk upon them; then you may pinch the wire
into any variations of squares and circles you please.

[Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF EDWARD IV. (1461-1483)

She wears the high hennin from which hangs a wisp of linen. On her
forehead is the velvet frontlet, and across her forehead is a veil
stretched on wires.]

The veil was sometimes worn all over the steeple hat, coming down over
the face, but stiff enough to stand away from it. Towards the end of
the reign the hats were not so high or so erect.

Remember, also, that the horned head-dress of the previous reign is
not by any means extinct.

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward IV.}]

There remain two more forms of making the human face hideous: one is
the head-dress closely resembling an enormous sponge bag, which for
some unknown reason lasted well into the reign of Henry VII. as a
variety to the fashionable head-gear of that time, and the other is
very simple, being a wimple kept on the head by a circular stuffed
hoop of material, which showed, plain and severe across the forehead.
The simple folk wore a hood of linen, with a liripipe and wide
ear-flaps.

[Illustration: {A woman of the time of Edward IV.}]

The dresses are plain in cut; they are all short-waisted if at all
fashionable. The most of them have a broad waist-belt, and very deep
borders to their skirts; they have broad, turned-back cuffs, often of
black. These cuffs, on being turned down over the hand, show the same
colour as the dress; they are, in fact, the old long cuff over the
fingers turned back for comfort.

It is by the variety of openings at the necks of the gowns that you
may get change. First, let me take the most ordinary--that is, an
opening of a V shape from shoulders to waist, the foot of the V at the
waist, the points on the top of the shoulders at the join of the arm.
Across this opening is seen, cut square and coming up to