This in itself shows the change in the age. Since the Britons--poor, simple souls--had sought to embellish Nature by staining themselves blue with woad and yellow with ochre, no paint had touched the faces of the fashionable until this reign. Perhaps discreet historians had left that fact veiled, holding the secrets of the lady's toilet too sacred for the black of print; but now the murder came out. The fact in itself is part of the psychology of clothes. Paint the face, and you have a hint towards the condition of fashion. Again, as in the case of the men, no determined cut shows which will point to this age as one of such and such a garment or such an innovation, but--and this I would leave to your imagination--there was a distinction that was not great enough to be a difference. The gowns were loose and flowing, and were gathered in at the waist by a girdle, or, rather, a belt, the tongue of which hung down in front; but as the end of the reign approached, the gowns were shaped a little more to the figure. A lady might possess such clothes as these: the gowns I have mentioned above, the sleeves of which were tight all the way from the shoulder to the wrist, or were loose and cut short just below the elbow, showing the tight sleeves of the under-gown. Shoes very elaborately embroidered and pointed at the toes. A rich cloak made oblong in shape and very ample in cut. A shaped mantle with strings to hold it together over the shoulders. [Illustration: A WOMAN OF THE TIME OF HENRY III. (1216-1272) This will show how very slight were the changes in woman's dress; a plain cloak, a plain gown, and a wimple over the head.] For the head a wimple made of white linen or perhaps of silk; this she would put above her head, leaving the neck bare. A long belt for her waist, and, if she were a great lady, a pair of gloves to wear or stick into her belt. THE COUNTRY FOLK From the Conquest to the reign of Edward I. [Illustration: {A countryman}] Until the present day the countryman has dressed in a manner most fitted to his surroundings; now the billycock hat, a devil-derived offspring from a Greek source, the Sunday suit of shiny black with purple trousers, the satin tie of Cambridge blue, and the stiff shirt, have almost robbed the peasant of his poetical appearance. Civilization seems to have arrived at our villages with a pocketful of petty religious differences, a bagful of public-houses, a bundle of penny and halfpenny papers full of stories to show the fascination of crime and--these Sunday clothes. The week's workdays still show a sense of the picturesque in corduroys and jerseys or blue shirts, but the landscape is blotted with men wearing out old Sunday clothes, so that the painter of rural scenes with rural characters must either lie or go abroad.