nes.

The _rara avis_ among women is she who always presents a fashionable
outline, but so subtly adapted to her own type that the impression made
is one of distinct individuality.

One knows very well how little the average costume counts in a theatre,
opera house or ball-room. It is a question of background again. Also you
will observe that the costume which counts most individually, is the one
in a key higher or lower than the average, as with a voice in a crowded
room.

The chief contribution of our day to the art of making woman decorative
is the quality of appropriateness. I refer of course to the woman who
lives her life in the meshes of civilisation. We have defined the smart
woman as she who wears the costume best suited to each occasion when
that occasion presents itself. Accepting this definition, we must all
agree that beyond question the smartest women, as a nation, are English
women, who are so fundamentally convinced as to the invincible law of
appropriateness that from the cradle to the grave, with them evening
means an evening gown; country clothes are suited to country uses and a
tea-gown is not a bedroom negligee. Not even in Rome can they be
prevailed upon "to do as the Romans do."

Apropos of this we recall an experience in Scotland. A house party had
gathered for the shooting,--English men and women. Among the guests were
two Americans; done to a turn by Redfern. It really turned out to be a
tragedy, as they saw it, for though their cloth skirts were short, they
were silk-lined; outing shirts were of crepe--not flannel; tan boots,
but thinly soled; hats most chic, but the sort that drooped in a mist.
Well, those two American girls had to choose between long days alone,
while the rest tramped the moors, or to being togged out in borrowed
tweeds, flannel shirts and thick-soled boots.

PLATE IV

Greek Kylix. Signed by Hieron, about 400 B.C. Athenian. The
woman wears one of the gowns Fortuny (Paris) has reproduced
as a modern tea gown. It is in two pieces. The characteristic
short tunic reaches just below waist line in front and hangs
in long, fine pleats (sometimes cascaded folds) under the
arms, the ends of which reach below knees. The material is
not cut to form sleeves; instead two oblong pieces of
material are held together by small fastenings at short
intervals, showing upper arm through intervening spaces. The
result in appearance is similar