By remembering that horizontal trimmings apparently decrease the
height, and that vertical lines add to it, those who desire to appear at
their best will use discernment in dividing their basques with yokes, or
corsage mountings at the bust-line or frills at the hip-line.

A flounce on the corsage at the bust-line, another at the hip-line, and
yet another at the bottom of the shirt, increases the impression of
bulkiness most aggressively and gives a barrel-like appearance to the
form of a stout woman that is decidedly funny, as may be seen in sketch
No. 44.

A study of the lines of the form will not only aid one in adopting a
more becoming style of dress, but will sharpen the artistic
perceptions, thus adding to the joy of life.

[Illustration: NO. 44]

"A beautiful form is better than a beautiful face" and should be clothed
so that its lines may appear at their best, and not be exaggerated and
caricatured. The figure is seen many more times than the face, and the
defects of the former are more conspicuous than those of the latter.

Do not be unjust to your beautiful body, the temple of your soul; above
all, do not caricature it by selecting your clothes with
indiscriminating taste.

NO MATTER WHAT THE PREVAILING MODE THESE RULES MAY BE PRACTICALLY
APPLIED.

CHAPTER IV.

HOW PLUMP AND THIN BACKS SHOULD BE CLOTHED.

She was from the middle-West, and despite the fact that she was married,
and that twenty-one half-blown blush roses had enwreathed her last
birthday cake, she had the alert, quizzical brightness of a child who
challenges everybody and everything that passes with the
countersign--"Why?" She investigated New York with unabashed interest,
and, like many another superior provincial, she freely expressed her
likes and dislikes for its traditions, show-places, and people with a
commanding and amusing audacity.

Her objections were numerous. The chief one that made a deep impression
upon her metropolitan friends was her disapproval of Sarah Bernhardt's
acting. The middle-Westerner, instead of becoming ecstatic in her
admiration, and at a loss for adjectives at the appearance of the divine
Sarah, merely perked at the great French artist for some time and then
demanded, querulously: "What's the matter with her? Why does she play
so much with her back to the audience? I don't like it."

It was a shock to the adorers of Sarah Bernhardt to hear her so
irreverently criticised. They loyally united in