Well, sez I, “It is a shame and a disgrace if they do, to say nothin’ of the wickedness of it. Who do you s’pose wants to see their old skin and bones? It haint nothin’ pretty anyway. And as fer the waists bein’ all girted up and drawed in, that is nothin’ but crushed bones and flesh and vitals, that is just crowdin’ down your insides into a state o’ disease and deformity, torturin’ your heart down so’s the blood can’t circulate, and your lungs so’s you can’t breathe, it is nothin’ but slow murder anyway, and if I ever take it into my head to kill myself, Alminy Hagidone, I haint a goin’ to do it in a way of perfect torture and torment to me, I’d ruther be drownded.” She quailed, and I sez, “I am one that is goin’ to take good long breaths to the very last.” She see I wuz like iron aginst the idee of bein’ drawed in, and tapered, and she desisted. I s’pose I did look skairful. But she seemed still to cling to the idee of low necks and trains, and she sez sort a rebukingly: “You ortn’t to go to Saratoga if you haint willin’ to do as the rest do. I spose,” sez she dreamily, “the streets are full of wimmen a walkin’ up and down with long trains a hangin’ down and sweepin’ the streets, and ev’ry one on ’em with low necks and short sleeves, and all on ’em a flirting with some man” “Truly,” sez I, “if that is so, that is why the idee come to me. I am _needed_ there. I have a high mission to perform about. But I don’t believe it is so.” “Then you won’t have it made with a long train?” sez she, a holdin’ up a breadth of the alpacky in front of me, to measure the skirt. “No mom!” sez I, and there wuz both dignity and deep resolve in that “mom.” It wuz as firm and stern principled a “mom” as I ever see, though I say it that shouldn’t. And I see it skairt her. She measured off the breadths kinder trembly, and seemed so anxious to pacify me that she got it a leetle shorter in the back than it wuz in the front. And (for the same reason) it fairly clicked me in the neck it wuz so high, and the sleeves wuz that long that I told Josiah Allen (in confidence) I was tempted to knit some loops across the bottom of ’em and wear ’em for mits. But I didn’t, and I didn’t change the dress neither. Thinkses I, mebby it will have a good moral effect on them other old wimmen there. Thinkses I, when they see another woman melted and shortened and choked fur principle’s sake, mebby they will pause in their wild careers. Wall, this wuz in November, and I wuz to have the dress, if it wuz a possible thing, by the middle of April, so’s to get it home in time to sew some lace in the neck. And so havin’ everything settled about goin’ I wuz calm in my frame most all the time, and so wuz my pardner.