e are told by the great Viollet le Duc that the faces of fifteenth-century women were of a uniform type. Certainly a uniform head-dress tends to establish a seeming resemblance of the wearers; the strange, steeple head-dress of that century might well have that effect; and the “French hood” worn so many years by English, French, and American women has somewhat the same effect on women’s countenances; it gives a uniformity of severity. It is difficult for a face to be pretty and gay under this gloomy hood. This French hood is plainly a development of the head-rail, which was simply an unshaped oblong strip of linen or stuff thrown over the head, and with the ends twisted lightly round the neck or tied loosely under the chin with whatever grace or elegance the individual wearer possessed. Varying slightly from reign to reign, yet never greatly changed, this sombre plain French hood was worn literally for centuries. It was deemed so grave and dignified a head-covering that, in the reign of Edward III, women of ill carriage were forbidden the wearing of it. Gulielma Penn. Gulielma Penn. In the year 1472 “Raye Hoods,” that is, striped hoods, were enjoined in several English towns as the distinctive wear of women of ill character. And in France this black hood was under restriction; only ladies of the French court were permitted to wear velvet hoods, and only women of station and dignity, black hoods. This black hood was dignified in allegorical literature as “the venerable hood,” and was ever chosen by limners to cover the head of any woman of age or dignity who was to be depicted. In the _Ladies’ Dictionary_ a hood is defined thus: “A Dutch attire covering the head, face and all the body.” And the long cloak with this draped hood, which must have been much like the Shaker cloak of to-day, seems to have been deemed a Dutch garment. It was warm and comfortable enough to be adopted readily by the English Pilgrims in Holland. It had come to England, however, in an earlier century. Of Ellinor Rummin, the alewife, Skelton wrote about the year 1500:— “A Hake of Lincoln greene It had been hers I weene More than fortye yeare And soe it doth appeare And the green bare threds Looked like sere wedes Withered like hay The wool worn awaye And yet I dare saye She thinketh herself gaye Upon a holy day.”