Chapter 26 - Page 2

Thanksgiving,"
Miss Jackson opined; and her hostess drily
rejoined: "Oh, he means us to give thanks for what's
left."

Archer had been wont to smile at these annual
vaticinations of his mother's; but this year even he was
obliged to acknowledge, as he listened to an enumeration
of the changes, that the "trend" was visible.

"The extravagance in dress--" Miss Jackson began.
"Sillerton took me to the first night of the Opera, and I
can only tell you that Jane Merry's dress was the only
one I recognised from last year; and even that had had
the front panel changed. Yet I know she got it out from
Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress always
goes in to make over her Paris dresses before she
wears them."

"Ah, Jane Merry is one of US," said Mrs. Archer
sighing, as if it were not such an enviable thing to be in
an age when ladies were beginning to flaunt abroad
their Paris dresses as soon as they were out of the
Custom House, instead of letting them mellow under
lock and key, in the manner of Mrs. Archer's contemporaries.

"Yes; she's one of the few. In my youth," Miss
Jackson rejoined, "it was considered vulgar to dress in
the newest fashions; and Amy Sillerton has always told
me that in Boston the rule was to put away one's Paris
dresses for two years. Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who
did everything handsomely, used to import twelve a
year, two velvet, two satin, two silk, and the other six
of poplin and the finest cashmere. It was a standing
order, and as she was ill for two years before she died
they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never
been taken out of tissue paper; and when the girls left
off their mourning they were able to wear the first lot
at the Symphony concerts without looking in advance
of the fashion."

"Ah, well, Boston is more conservative than New
York; but I always think it's a safe rule for a lady to
lay aside her French dresses for one season," Mrs.
Archer conceded.

"It was Beaufort who started the new fashion by
making his wife clap her new clothes on her back as
soon as they arrived: I must say at times it takes all
Regina's distinction not to look like . . . like . . ." Miss
Jackson glanced around the table, caught Janey's bulging
gaze, and took refuge in an unintelligible murmur.

"Like her rivals," said Mr. Sillerton Jackson, with
the air of producing an epigram.

"Oh,--" the ladies murmured; and Mrs. Archer added,
partly to distract her daughter's attention from forbidden
topics: "Poor Regina! Her Thanksgiving hasn't
been a very cheerful one, I'm afraid. Have you heard
the rumours about Beaufort's speculations, Sillerton?"

Mr. Jackson nodded carelessly. Every