I suggested, in aid of this undeniable argument, that the comb should be suppressed. “Oh! dear, no, I wouldn’t give it up for the world!” said Mrs. Clifford, with the emphatic manner she might have used if I had proposed her giving up her spectacles. “Then you must have one made to order.” “Yes,” said Madame Alexandrine, “I will make one for madame after a _modèle à part_.” “But then it will be dowdy and old-fashioned,” demurred the Englishwoman. “Then let madame sacrifice _le peigne à galerie_! What sacrifice is it, after all? Nobody wears them now; they belong to a past age,” argued Madame Alexandrine, appealing to me. “This one was a present from my husband,” replied Mrs. Clifford, in a tone that seemed to say: “You understand, there is nothing more to be said.” I did not dare look at Berthe. Luckily she was beside me, so I could not see her face, but I saw the muff go up in a very expressive way, and she suddenly disappeared into a little _salon_ to the left, set apart for caps and _coiffures de bal_. I heard a smothered “burst,” and a treacherous _armoire à glace_ revealed her thrown back in an arm-chair, stuffing her handkerchief into her mouth, and convulsed with laughter. Madame Folibel, whose risible faculties long and hard training had brought under perfect control, received the communication, however, with unruffled equanimity. “That explains why madame holds to it,” she answered very seriously; “it is natural and affecting. Still, one must be reasonable; one must not sacrifice too much to a sentiment. Monsieur would not wish it,” turning to the gentleman, who stood with his back to the fireplace listening in solemn silence to the controversy. “Monsieur understands that the chief point in madame’s toilette is her bonnet. I grieve to say English ladies themselves do not sufficiently realize the supremacy of the bonnet; yet a moment’s reflection ought to show them how all-important it is, how necessary that every other feature in the dress should succumb to it. The complexion, the hair, the shape of the head, are all at the mercy of the _chapeau_. Of what avail is a handsome dress, and fashionable shawl or mantle, costly fur, lace--an irreproachable _tout-ensemble_, in fine--if the bonnet be unbecoming? All these are but the _rez-de-chaussée_ and the _entresol_, so to speak, while the _chapeau_ is the crown of the edifice. Le chapeau enfin c’est la femme! [The bonnet, in fact, is the woman!]” At this climax Madame Folibel paused. Mr. Clifford, who had listened as solemn as a judge, his hands in his pockets, and not a muscle of his face moving, while the _modiste_, looking straight at him, delivered herself of her _credo_, now turned to me. “Unquestionably,” he said in a serious and impressive tone, “there must be a place in heaven for these people. They are thoroughly in earnest.” Mrs. Clifford took advantage of the aside between her husband and me to follow up Madame Folibel’s oration by a few private remarks.