A FASHION ITEM --[Written about 1867.]
At General G----'s reception the other night, the most fashionably dressed lady was Mrs.G.C.She wore a pink satin dress, plain in front but with a good deal of rake to it--to the train, I mean; it was said to be two or three yards long.One could see it creeping along the floor some little time after the woman was gone.Mrs.C.wore also a white bodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck, with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves.She had on a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of that barren waste of neck and shoulders.Her hair was frizzled into a tangled chaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactly bound and plaited into a stump like a pony's tail, and furthermore was canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvet crupper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around a hairpin on the top of her head.Her whole top hamper was neat and becoming.She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but it faded out by degrees in an unaccountable way.However, it is not lost for good.I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward.(I stood near the door when she squeezed out with the throng.) There were other ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen.I would gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.
