seen down in the lowlands at a lawn-party, with their wide and much
beruffled skirts.

"Oh, they're looser," he said gravely. "Much, much looser. Why, they are
as big around as that!" He made a sweeping, circular gesture with his
arms.

"What for trimmings do they have?"

"Oh, all sorts of things--ruffles, frills, embroidery and laces."

"What's embroidery?"

He tried to tell her, but he did not make it very clear, and, realizing
that he had done quite his best although he had not done so very well,
she sighed and dropped that detail of the subject. But she knew what
frills and ruffles were.

"And how about their waists?" said she. "Like mine, are they?"

He looked, appraisingly, at the loose basque, which, because of the
budding beauty of her form rather than because of any merit of its own,
had seemed to him most charming and attractive. Close examination did
not show this to be the case. It was a crude garment, certainly, of
crude material, crude cut, crude make. The beauty all was in the
wearer's soft young curves and lissome grace.

"No," he answered, honestly, "they're not like that. In the summer, and
for evenings--such as dances and the like--they are cut low at the neck.
And they are tighter."