Then a black dress caught my eye which had an
embattled trimming of black and gold, continued round the
waist and completed with a large gold buckle. Then there was a
grey cashmere with red stars and a bronze-coloured silk with
black velvet a quarter of a yard wide let into the skirt; the
body all of black velvet. I could go on, if my memory would
serve me. The rooms were full of this sort of thing. Yet more
than the dresses the heads surprised me. Just at that time the
style of hair-dressing was one of those styles which are
endurable, and perhaps even very beautiful, in the hands of a
first-rate artist and on the heads of the few women who dress
well; but which are more and more hideous the further you get
from that distant pinnacle of the mode, and the lower down
they spread among the ranks of society. I thought, as I looked
from one to another, I had never seen anything so ill in
taste, so outraged in style, so unspeakable in ugliness as
well as in pretension. I supposed then it was the fashion
principally which was to blame.
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