“Isn’t it dreadful!” said Pheasant. “There’s my new mauve silk dress! it was a very expensive silk, and I haven’t worn it more than three or four times, and it really looks quite dowdy; and I can’t get Patterson to do it over for me for this party. Well, really, I shall have to give up company because I have nothing to wear.”
“Who does set the fashions, I wonder,” said Humming-Bird; “they seem nowadays to whirl faster and faster, till really they don’t leave one time for anything.”
“Yes,” said Dove, “I haven’t a moment for reading, or drawing, or keeping up my music. The fact is, nowadays, to keep one’s self properly dressed is all one can do. If I were grande dame now, and had only to send an order to my milliner and dressmaker, I might be beautifully dressed all the time without giving much thought to it myself; and that is what I should like. But this constant planning about one’s toilet, changing your buttons and your fringes and your bonnet-trimmings and your hats every other day, and then being behindhand! It is really too fatiguing.”
“Well,” said Jenny, “I never pretend to keep up. I never expect to be in the front rank of fashion, but no girl wants to be behind every one; nobody wants to have people say, ‘Do see what an old-times, rubbishy looking creature that is.’ And now, with my small means and my conscience (for I have a conscience in this matter, and don’t wish to spend any more time and money than is needed to keep one’s self fresh and tasteful), I find my dress quite a fatiguing care.”
“Well, now, girls,” said Humming-Bird, “do you really know, I have sometimes thought I should like to be a nun, just to get rid of all this labor. If I once gave up dress altogether, and knew I was to have nothing but one plain robe tied round my waist with a cord, it does seem to me as if it would be a perfect repose,—only one is a Protestant, you know.”
Now, as Humming-Bird was the most notoriously dressy individual in the little circle, this suggestion was received with quite a laugh. But Dove took it up.
“Well, really,” she said, “when dear Mr. S—— preaches those saintly sermons to us about our baptismal vows, and the nobleness of an unworldly life, and calls on us to live 377 for something purer and higher than we are living for, I confess that sometimes all my life seems to me a mere sham,—that I am going to church, and saying solemn words, and being wrought up by solemn music, and uttering most solemn vows and prayers, all to no purpose; and then I come away and look at my life, all resolving itself into a fritter about dress, and sewing-silk, cord, braid, and buttons,—the next fashion of bonnets,—how to make my old dresses answer instead of new,—how to keep the air of the world, while in my heart I am cherishing something higher and better. If there’s anything I detest it is hypocrisy; and sometimes the life I lead looks like it. But how to get out of it?—what to do?—”
“I’m sure,” said Humming-Bird, “that taking care of my clothes and going into company is, frankly, all I do. If I go to parties, as other girls do, and make calls, and keep dressed,—you know papa is not rich, and one must do these things economically,—it really does take all the time I have. When I was confirmed the Bishop talked to us so sweetly, and I really meant sincerely to be a good girl,—to be as good as I knew how; but now, when they talk about fighting the good fight and running the Christian race, I feel very mean and little, for I am quite sure this isn’t doing it. But what is,—and who is?”
“Aunt Betsey Titcomb is doing it, I suppose,” said Pheasant.