If the laws of health and beauty were more generally understood, would it be possible that such enormities could exist as tight lacing, and high heels, and pointed toes? I am far from holding in abhorrence all corsets whatever. There are few figures which can do entirely without some stay; but tidiness and a neat, well-fitting gown are very different things from the walking hour-glass that seems as if it would snap in two at a touch. [Illustration: DESIGN FOR A BALL DRESS.] But though the stay, when properly used, may be upheld, there is nothing that can be said in excuse of the wicked fashion--wicked, because the cause of much deformity and disease--of the high heel and pointed toe. We all know the mischief done by the very high heel, and from an artistic point of view it is to be condemned, making, as it does, the prettiest foot look like a hoof and destroying all freedom and dignity of gait. The pointed toe distorts the foot from its natural shape and gives the idea of the front claw of a vulture protruding from the gown, and while it miserably fails in making the foot look small, succeeds only too well in making it hideous. If one sees the whole foot, its width appears very much greater than it really is, by contrast with the point, and the joint of the big toe is brought into most aggressive prominence. If one sees only the end of the shoe peeping from under the dress, in many cases the point with its rapidly diverging lines suggests that the foot hidden by the gown _may_ continue to any width, however enormous. With the square-toed shoe, on the contrary, one has a fair idea of the whole width of the foot at once. It cannot go much beyond that, and the ideas of discomfort and pain are not constantly forced into one's mind. Characteristic dresses of the period are the riding habit and tailor-made gown. I humbly confess that I dislike them both, for while they are simple, practical, plain, neat, warm, and on a slender unexaggerated figure, modest--they fail in the quality of womanliness, and therefore cannot be beautiful. They are not womanly in sentiment. First because (a reason which has little to do with the scope of this letter) a woman's clothes should be made by a woman only, and all who are loyal to their own sex would employ each other in an occupation so feminine. Then they are unwomanly because they imitate men's dress, and I don't know that I should make a sin of this, were it not that at the present time men's dress is too truly hideous to be imitated even by a savage of darkest Africa! It is for this reason that I find the riding habit so ugly and inartistic. Practical it is, but it apes the coat and the hat (!) of the man, and now that his cardboard shirt and collar are often added, I have no words strong enough that I may use to express the depths of my dislike.