But the material being at last selected, can they now rest from their labors? Ah, no! their trials are but just begun. The ruling power in the fashionable world--the dress-maker--condescends to acknowledge that the articles selected are all satisfactory, though twenty or even thirty yards are hardly enough for a full dress (our mothers looked very fine and far more inviting and graceful with but ten yards in their dresses). But now comes the great struggle. How shall the dress be made? Mrs. ---- has twelve small frills or flounces around her skirt, and a train two feet long; then there must be a bustle “ever so big,” over which falls a _pannier_, with puffs, bows, buttons innumerable, bands, folds, and--mercy! we are getting beyond our depth, for we cannot possibly understand all the terms given to the piles upon piles of strange “fixings” which go to make up the whole of that most abominable deformity called a fashionable dress. But the poor harassed devotee has them all at her tongue’s end, for her heart is full of them. If Mrs. ---- has a dozen ruffles or puffs, she will not be outdone, but will have eighteen or twenty, and a bustle twice as big, which shall extend her overskirt and all its puffs and bands twice as far; and ever so many more dozen buttons all over,--above, below, before, behind, between the frills or bows,--_anywhere_, so that Mrs. ----’s trimmings are surpassed. “But, truly, now, dear madam, is this the _very_ latest style? Isn’t there something just a _little newer_?” And then another discussion begins, anxious, nervous, and trembling, lest some one should be a little ahead of her in style. The poor slave spends many precious hours before she dares to decide on the pattern. But at last that question is settled; and now another trouble assails her. The arrogant dress-maker well understands the power these devotees of fashion have vested in her hands, and her victims, proud, sensitive, and overbearing perhaps to all others, must bow to her will and caprices. She will take her own time to finish the work. “But, O madam! I _must_ have it for this party, before any one else has this new style.” She pleads in vain. No coaxing will avail. She must await the despot’s will, and spend hours or days excited and unhappy, fearing that the dress will not be finished in season for the party. And when at last it comes, look at it! We could laugh, were we not ashamed to think that women can be so absurd. What can be more uncouth, ungraceful, or deforming than a lady dressed in the extreme of fashion, or indeed with but half the absurdities that are daily seen. A camel, with its hump and peculiar gait, is graceful compared with the figures with frowzy hair, dresses puffed and looped up over a bustle, that we see stooping and tottering on high-heeled boots, or with the additional incumbrance of a long trail, sweeping through our parlors, and, at the slightest beck of fashion, drabbling through the mud.