If we would occasionally condescend to ask the advice of our _masters_, if we would do so particularly with our dry-goods or millinery bills in our hands, I think they would be more likely to advise simplicity in our toilettes than to express themselves satisfied with their extravagant elegance. Now frankly, do you believe these gentlemen so simple as to desire that every glance may be directed to the dress of their young wife, or to the garland of flowers which adorns her hair? I was present one day, in the house of a friend, at an amusing contradiction given to assertions of this sort. Madame de G----, assisted by her maid, was trying on a rose-colored satin dress which had just been sent home from the dressmaker's, and which she was to wear at a grand official ball the same evening. She turned round and round before the mirror of the room, and her immense trail appeared to her much too short. What distressed her particularly was that the corsage was not _low enough_. I asked in astonishment how low she wanted it. "Mariette," said she to her maid, "this must be cut several inches lower all round." And turning to me, "My husband does not like such high-necked dresses," she said. While the lady was occupied with some other detail of her charming toilette, the door opened and the husband to whom she so generously sacrificed the requirements of modesty entered. He examined his wife's toilette. He had the right to do so, since he would have to pay for it. He thought the rose color a little too lively, the trail a little too long, and, above all, the corsage much, very much too low. "My dear child," said he, "your dressmaker is incorrigible; she has not the least judgment; you must procure another. You cannot appear in company so uncovered. Arrange matters as best you can, but this dress must be altered." "Why! every one dresses this way. Is it my fault if you do not understand these things, Adrian? However, I shall not contradict you. I will have a puff of tulle put around the corsage. It is going to make the dress horribly high, and all its style will be lost." Such is the opinion of a husband, heard by chance; it is what is sometimes said and what is always thought. Let us then appeal to the husbands! Undoubtedly, to clothe one's self is a necessity; to make her garments becoming is, I might almost say, woman's marriage portion; and I would not dare to assert that our ancestors, the Gauls, did not seek and discover the means of wearing in a graceful manner the skins of wild animals which protected them from the inclemencies of the seasons, just as the women of the present day have learned to clothe themselves with elegance in the rich fabrics of India or in clouds of exquisite lace. But between the former and the latter what a distance! What a broad gulf!