appear ungraceful or even ugly; but you have obeyed the mandates of fashion. Certainly the extravagances and caprices of the present day amply prove the truth of what I have said. Even if past forty, we will wear short dresses, round hats, curls, and high-heeled boots. Even if tall and slender, no one will wear narrower skirts. Even if possessed of a full rounded form which we vainly deplore, we will pick out white corsages, light dresses, and the smallest of hats, because our greatest, or rather our only, fear is lest people should say that we wear things which are out of fashion. Fashion! Let us throw off its shameful yoke. Instead of accepting, let us make its laws. This is reasonable ambition. Why not form a committee, and every year, or at the beginning of every season, pass judgment on the important question of the transformation of our toilettes? Why not submit the laws made by this female assembly to a committee composed of our husbands; and finally, promulgate and introduce them to the notice of all whom they concern by a special and duly authorized publication? I commend this project to the serious consideration of our young women. All will admit that it would be less humiliating for us to submit to the dictates of fashion under such, than under present circumstances. Clothing has a twofold end: to cover us and protect us from the inclemencies of the seasons, to supply the place of the beautiful fur or the brilliant plumage which forms the natural covering of beasts and birds. I will return later to the question of woman's clothing considered in a religious and moral point of view. At present, I shall treat of it only as it regards health. Do our dresses cover us? By a strange reversion of common _sense_, it is during the severity of winter we most willingly expose our arms and necks. You smile? The parlors are warm. But are our carriages, are the streets of our large cities? You would shudder if I should present to you the frightful statistics of the young women who have fallen victims to such imprudences. Every religion has its martyrs. Do you wish to be martyrs to fashion? The second end of our apparel is to indicate the respective positions of persons in society. Thus, the Roman senators had the privilege of wearing the white tunic ornamented with purple. So also, in our own time, the uniform of the army reveals at a glance the rank of the wearer. Alas! in this respect, of how much use is it to us at the present day? The sumptuary laws, the edicts of Louis XIII. and Louis XIV., are entirely forgotten.