"Exactly; women are reproached with thinking too much about dress, but the real truth is, they do not think enough about it—in the right way. They talk about it dreadfully, in the vulgarest fashion, but bring any thought to it they don't. Most women will wear anything if it be only de rigueur. I believe if I, and Princess Metternich, and Madame de Gallifet, and Madame Aguado, and a few like us wore that pea-green silk coat and waistcoat which the Advanced Thought Ladies of America are advocating as the best new kind of dress for women, that you would see ten thousand pea-green coats and waistcoats blazing in the streets the week afterwards———"
"Not a bad idea for the Cotton Costume ball," said Madame Mila. "I will have a pea-green coat and waistcoat, a tall hat, and hessians; and call myself 'Advanced Thought.'"
"To be completely in character, Mila, you must have blue spectacles, a penny whistle, a phial full of nostrums, a magpie for your emblem, and a calico banner, inscribed 'Everything is Nothing!'———"
"Charming! It shall be the best thing there.
