Many were the names of those pretty little cloaks and capes which were worn with the sacque-shaped gowns. The duchess was one; we revived the name for a similar mantle in 1870. The pelisse was in France the cloak with arm-holes, shown, here, upon one of Sir Joshua Reynolds’s engaging children. The pelisse in America sometimes had sleeves, I am sure; and was hardly a cloak. It is difficult to classify some forms which seem almost jackets. A general distinction may be made not to include sleeved garments with the cloaks; but several of the manteaus had loose, large, flowing sleeves, and some like Madam Symonds’s had detached sleeves. It is also difficult to know whether some of the negligees were cloaks or sacque-like gowns. And there is the other extreme; some of the smaller, circular neck-coverings like the van-dykes are not cloaks. They are scarcely capes; they are merely collars; but there are still others which are a bit bigger and are certainly capes. And are there not also capes, like the neckatee, which may be termed cloaks? Material, too, is bewildering; a light gauze thing of ribbons and furbelows like the Unella is not really a cloak, yet it takes a cloaklike form. There are no cut and dried rules as to size, form, or weight of these cloaks, capes, collars, and hoods, so I have formed my own classes and assignments. CHAPTER X THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN _“Rise up to thy Elders, put off thy Hat, make a Leg”_ —“Janua Linguarum,” COMENIUS, 1664. _“Little ones are taught to be proud of their clothes before they can put them on.”_ —“Essay on Human Understanding,” LOCKE, 1687. _“When thou thyself, a watery, pulpy, slobbery Freshman and newcomer on this Planet, sattest mewling in thy nurse’s arms; sucking thy coral, and looking forth into the world in the blankest manner, what hadst thou been without thy blankets and bibs and other nameless hulls?”_ —“Sartor Resartus,” THOMAS CARLYLE, 1836. CHAPTER X THE DRESS OF OLD-TIME CHILDREN W hen we reflect that in any community the number of “the younger sort” is far larger than of grown folk, when we know, too, what large families our ancestors had, in all the colonies, we must deem any picture of social life, any history of costume, incomplete unless the dress of children is shown. French and English books upon costume are curiously silent regarding such dress. It might be alleged as a reason for this singular silence that the dress of young children was for centuries precisely that of their elders, and needed no specification. But infants’ dress certainly was widely different, and full of historic interest, as well as quaint prettiness; and there were certain details of the dress of older children that were most curious and were wholly unlike the contemporary garb of their elders; sometimes these details were survivals of ancient modes for grown folk, sometimes their name was a survival while their form had changed.