A more formidable monstrosity of these years was the "bustle," admirably criticized by the fisherman in Du Maurier's picture. By 1889 _Punch_ celebrated its departure along with other excrescences in a parody of Browning:-- EVELYN'S HOPE The hideous bustle at last is dead. Come and talk of the beast a minute! Never again will it flourish, it's said; What on earth we women saw in it, Or why we liked it, is hard to discover; Only the world is a nicer place, Now that the pest called a "dress-improver" Is improved, by Fashion, right off its face. There's the tall hat, too, which they say is doomed. One rather liked it, or viewed it with awe, Till one sat in a theatre, and far away loomed A rampart of feathers, frilling, and straw, Hiding the stage, the footlights, and all, Save perhaps the top of a paste-board tree; Oh, then one's fingers did certainly crawl To fling a book at the filigree! But, some day, in Fashion's whirligig, The monstrous bustle, the Eiffel hat, May arise once more, even twice as big, For our great-grandchildren to wonder at. Well, that's Posterity's matter, not mine. The one thing now is to put up a hymn Of praise, and of hope that, when new suns shine, Good taste may flourish instead of whim! [Sidenote: _Æsthetic Children_] In 1891 a new fashion of dressing hair in the "teapot handle" style arose and was pronounced by _Punch_ to be "frightful," and the epithet is at least justified by _Punch's_ caricature. [Illustration: THE HEIGHT OF ÆSTHETIC EXCLUSIVENESS MAMMA: "Who are those extraordinary-looking children?" EFFIE: "The Cimabue Browns, Mamma. They're _Æsthetic_, you know!" MAMMA: "So I should imagine. Do you know them to speak to?" EFFIE: "Oh dear no, Mamma--They're most _exclusive_. Why, they put out their tongues at us if we only _look_ at them!"] Throughout this period the children in Du Maurier's pictures, however dressed, are a joy to look at. The fashion of arraying them in "æsthetic" costumes meets, however, with no favour. It is even implied that such a garb impairs their manners and conduces to arrogance, witness Du Maurier's picture of the young Cimabue Browns putting out their tongues in derision at ordinary normally clad children in the park. In 1881 we read:-- The poor little Guys who have been compelled by unthinking parents to walk about in long skirts, antique cloaks, and coal-scuttle bonnets, have caused so much laughter that the dress is now called "The Grinaway Costume."