Let all dress, therefore, always be as durable as can be, both in material and mode. As to “fashion,” even that has a root of necessity and common sense, because dress must change as social habits and customs change. Ruskin advises that no garment should ever be thrown aside because unfashionable, and that no costly fashion should ever be followed. Think what that word “costly” involves. Tight lacing, heavy flouncing, open bodices, high heels, and so forth, costly of health; dead birds’ wings, and everything else costly of suffering; complicated trimmings, costly of time and human energy in a world where there are thousands of little children growing up ill taught, thousands of sick people dying ill tended, thousands of industrious folk slaving to death for a paltry pittance. It seems to us that when a lady has once discovered the dress best suited to her age, appearance, and condition—the ideal robe in which she would wish to be painted for the eyes of unborn generations—her future study will be, not how much she can “follow the fashion,” but how little she need follow it to escape singularity. Fashion has nothing to do with a desire to be pleasant in the sight of others. Let any of our readers turn to the graceful studies of girl-life with which M. E. E. makes us so familiar, and then to the figures in any fashion-plate, and ask themselves candidly which are most likely to commend themselves to the eye of artistic taste or of domestic affection? And here we come to the matter of making ourselves “fair to see.” This is a decided duty. We have to make ourselves attractive to those whose love we desire, and to those from whose wisdom we wish approval. But we imagine that the desire to be loved and approved has a very small share in extravagance and fantasticalness in dress. Let us speak out plainly. We seldom befrill and bedeck ourselves, and waste time and money, to please our parents or friends, but rather to spite and outshine our “dearest enemies” among our female acquaintances. Suitability of style, dainty freshness, and tasteful variety will always satisfy love; and good sense, combined with a little industry and taste, will easily secure these desirable objects. I remember the approving notice bestowed by a great divine and philanthropist on the appearance of a young literary woman, who, travelling under difficult and troublesome conditions, was provided with a very few dresses of the plainest quality and style, but who by artfully varied arrangements of muslin or lace and coquettish little additions of tasteful ribbon, managed to give her friends’ eyes an ever-new surprise and pleasure. Can there be a prettier picture than that of a modest little maiden trying how a rose-coloured bow will brighten her sober dress, to please papa—or perhaps somebody else?