ns when a lady walks to pay
visits or calls, a plain tailor-made costume is most suitable.
Carriage dress may be gayer in colors, and more dressy in style of cut
and trimmings.

When a party of ladies attend the theatre, unaccompanied by a male
escort, or with no conveyance but the street-car, ordinary walking
costume, with quiet bonnets or hats, is correct style. Box parties,
presumably arriving in carriages, may dress as prettily as they choose,
subject to the general laws of taste.

A woman should not mix up her wardrobe, and wear a theatre bonnet to
church, or carry a coaching parasol to a funeral.

Black, or very subdued colors, should be worn to a funeral.

Any color, _except black_, may be worn by a guest at a wedding. Black
lace may be used in the trimmings of rich-colored gowns (though white
lace is preferable); but solid black is not allowable. Women who are
wearing mourning sometimes lay it aside to attend a wedding,
substituting a lavender or violet gown, or, in some places, a deep red,
usually in some rich fabric, as velvet or plush.

The etiquette of wearing mourning is less rigorous than formerly. The
tendency is more and more to leave the matter to individual feeling.
When the mourning garb is adopted, the periods of wearing are shorter,
and the phases of change from heaviest to lightest are fewer and less
punctilious.

Whether a full mourning dress of _crepe_ be worn, or not, it is
generally conceded that it is more respectful to wear plain black than
to appear in colors during the months immediately following the death
of a near relative. The length of time that mourning dress should be
worn is a matter of taste; but it should not be laid aside too soon, as
though the wearing were an unpleasant duty; nor should it be worn too
long, for the sombre robe has a depressing effect on others, especially
invalids and children.

Those who prefer to follow a strict law of etiquette in mourning will
observe the following rules:

A widow wears deep mourning of woolen stuffs and _crepe_ for two years.

Similar mourning is worn one year for a parent, or a brother or sister.

For other near relatives, from three to six months, according to
degrees of relationship, is considered a respectful period for mourning.

A man's wife wears the same degrees of mourning for his near relatives
that she would wear for members of her own family.

In all cases, the mourning should be "lightened" by degrees. Plai