"I think I had better explain part of the plot, as to these two--Sylvie and Bruno. They are not fairies right through the book--but _children_. All these conditions make their _dress_ rather a puzzle. They mustn't have _wings_; that is clear. And it must be _quite_ the common dress of London life. It should be as fanciful as possible, so as _just_ to be presentable in Society. The friends might be able to say 'What oddly-dressed children!' but they oughtn't to say 'They are not human!' "Now I think you'll say you have 'got your work cut out for you,' to invent a suitable dress!" How I wish I had had those dresses cut out for me! The above instructions were quickly followed by other suggestions which added to my already scanty idea of a costume suitable to Kensington Gardens and to fairyland! I was thinking this difficulty would be lessened if the story took place in winter, when I received another letter, which I must frankly confess rather alarmed me: [Illustration: SPECIMEN OF LEWIS CARROLL'S DRAWING AND WRITING.] "As to the dresses of these children in their fairy state (we shall sometimes have them mixing in Society, and supposed to be real children; and for _that_ they must, I suppose, be dressed as in ordinary life, but _eccentrically_, so as to make a little distinction). I _wish_ I dared dispense with _all_ costume; naked children are so perfectly pure and lovely, but Mrs. Grundy would be furious--it would never do. Then the question is, how little dress will content her? Bare legs and feet we _must_ have, at any rate. I so entirely detest that monstrous fashion _high heels_ (and in fact have planned an attack on it in this very book), that I cannot possibly allow my sweet little heroine to be victimised by it." Another monstrous fashion he condemns refers to a picture of his grown-up heroine in London Society: "Could you cut off those high shoulders from her sleeves? Why should we pay any deference to a hideous fashion that will be extinct a year hence? Next to the unapproachable ugliness of 'crinoline,' I think these high-shouldered sleeves are the worst things invented for ladies in our time. Imagine how horrified they would be if one of their daughters were _really_ shaped like that!" I did make a note of a horrified mother with a nineteenth century malformation, but I did not send it to the author, as it struck me, when re-reading his letter, he was possibly serious. Still we had Sylvie's dress, Mrs. Grundy, crinolines, and high heels to discuss: [Illustration: ORIGINAL SKETCH BY LEWIS CARROLL OF HIS CHARMING HERO AND HEROINE.]