And then think of the
service that there is in it. It does not tear, it does not crush. When
she comes home she looks as fresh as when she started. When it soils
at the edge of the skirt, she has it cleaned, and there she is with a
new dress again. Do you call that extravagant? Why, my dear sirs, it
is only the very rich who can afford to wear "simple white muslins!"
There is a hollowness about having a man praise your gowns when you
know he doesn't know what he is talking about. When a man praises your
clothes he always is praising you in them. You never will hear a man
praise even the good dressing of a woman he dislikes; while girls who
positively hate another girl often will add, "But she certainly does
know how to dress."
And so the experienced woman wears her expensive clothes for other
women, and produces her "effects" for men. She wears scarlet on a cold
or raw day, and the eyes of the men light up when they see her. It
makes her look cheerful and bright and warm. She wears gray when she
wants to look demure. Let a man beware of a woman in silvery gray. She
looks so quiet and dove-like and gentle that she has disarmed him
before she has spoken one word, and he will snuggle down beside her
and let her turn his mind and his pocket-book wrong side out.
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