The sun and dust and rain
finish up the hats in less than no time.
But I have not done with my clothes yet. A lady must keep a warm dress
and jacket close at hand all through the most broiling summer weather,
for a couple of hours will bring the thermometer down ten or twenty
degrees, and I have often been gasping in a white dressing-gown at noon
and shivering in a serge dress at three o'clock on the same day. I am
making up my mind that serge and ticking are likely to be the most
useful material for dresses, and, as one must have something very cool
for these burning months, tussore or foulard, which get themselves
better washed than my poor dear cottons. Silks are next to useless--too
smart, too hot, too entirely out of place in such a life as this, except
perhaps one or two of tried principles, which won't spot or fade or
misbehave themselves in any way. One goes out of a warm, dry afternoon
with a tulle veil on to keep off the flies, or a feather in one's hat,
and returns with the one a limp, wet rag and the other quite out of
curl. I only wish any milliner could see my feathers now! All straight,
rigidly straight as a carpenter's rule, and tinged with red dust
besides. As for tulle or crepe-lisse frilling, or any of those soft
pretty adjuncts to a simple toilette, they are five minutes' wear--no
more, I solemnly declare.
I love telling a story against myself, and here is one. In spite of
repeated experiences of the injurious effect of alternate damp and dust
upon finery, the old Eve is occasionally too strong for my prudence, and
I can't resist, on the rare occasions which offer themselves, the
temptation of wearing pretty things.
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