There are public fancy-dress balls in plenty, and the Ice Carnival has just lived its little day--or night, and now and again some daring creature, unversed in the ways of her world, issues invitations with the words "Fancy Dress" printed on the corner of the card, which declares her determination to be "At Home" at some club or another. But disappointment generally waits upon the result: the numbers who accept are few, and of these many will consider themselves exempt from wearing the motley, and will beg the question in the Windsor uniform of red facings to the dress coat. Most men candidly confess to feeling themselves fools arrayed in any but the most conventional costume, and it is only the vanity of a few that will yield to the attractions of being a velvet-clad Cavalier, a slashed Romeo, or a bedizened Beaucaire. A woman, on the other hand, delights in being somebody else, and scarcely a country house party comes to its close in winter time without some attempt at dressing up, the "head-dress" dinner being quite an established function, whence, without doubt, much amusement may be evolved and much ingenuity result. The success of the head-dress in influencing the entire appearance gives, of course, proof to my favourite dogma, that the crowning point is the point of importance in costume. Time and opportunity in the past have exhausted the decorative delights of simulating some flower, but although such tactics are distinctly common-place, yet few frocks look prettier than these when well planned. One of the most successful I can recall represented a fuchsia, and it had a purple velvet skirt cut in pointed tabs, and bore an over-skirt similarly treated of crimson silk; the tight-fitting short bodice was of the palest green, cream-coloured stockings in pale green satin shoes appeared beneath these, while the hat was an entire fuchsia, violet, purple, green, and cream being all disposed in their proper places. This was easy enough to make, and facility must be an advantage, even as economy, in the planning of a dress for the carnival, since, after all, it is scarcely likely to make its appearance on more than one occasion. An original idea for which we can give thanks to the Fates is the Gooseberry-fool's dress, which may be compassed with petticoats of pale-green silk fringed with gooseberries of padded silk, and on the head a fool's cap with pendent gooseberries as bells. As a dress easy of achievement I can quote that one sketched here in colour, the Seville Orange. The dress and bodice of orange-coloured silk bear an application of padded oranges and leaves on the skirt, beneath a chenille fringe of black with heavy netting, velvet streamers and oranges are used at discretion to adorn the hair, and the petticoats beneath the yellow skirt are of green, the stockings and shoes being of the same tone.