Let us say at once that it is the right of all to be well dressed, because that means to be dressed suitably to the climate and circumstances in which they live, and to their occupation, age, and appearance. A woman may be quite as well dressed in print and serge as in velvet and satin. When you hear people complaining that “nowadays everybody will go so well dressed,” you hear a misuse of language; and language loosely used is a dangerous thing; because it leads to looseness of idea. Nobody has any right to complain of anybody’s being well dressed. What they really mean is that these are unsuitably dressed. And there is a great deal of unsuitable dress in the world of the kind, more or less in degree, of that seen in the daughter of a _parvenu_ millionaire of the Western States, who, when she went to a sensible New England seminary, where the young ladies were expected to wait on themselves, descended to the scullery in a velvet robe and diamond earrings! Anybody, therefore, is not well dressed whose attire unfits her for the performance of those actions which _ought_ to be her duty. The tight-laced, be-flounced be-trained damsel proclaims to the world her utter unwomanliness. The nursery would soon make havoc in her finery. Let us hope she would never carry it into a sick room, and in the kitchen it would be a nuisance and a bad example. But then “Isn’t it pretty for wearing in the parlour during those hours when we are doing nothing?” Let us reply with other questions: “Ought there to be hours when we are doing nothing?” And “In providing ourselves with clothes only fit for such occasions, are we not falling into the error we often smile at in working men who will buy stiff, uncomely Sunday garments of broadcloth and silk hats, instead of providing themselves with gala suits of the sensible tweed that will serve afterwards for work-a-day wear?”