Page:Costume, fanciful, historical, and theatrical (1906).djvu/261

XVIII Commanders were instructed to present themselves in the mantles and collars pertaining to their various orders.

Such youths as were fortunate enough to receive invitations to attend, were instructed to do so in a black velvet costume, knickerbockers, black silk stockings, shoes with steel buckles, and a Glengarry cap of black velvet.

The two dominant figures in the great pageant bore upon them a burden of crowns, and cloaks, and swords, and trains, palls, sceptres, and rings and rods, mantles and caps and robes, whose heavy cares represented but lightly Royal responsibility.

But the most interesting of all the garbs of convention, because the most supremely personal, is the bridal costume, dedicated primarily to white, and permitted to enjoy the distinctions of silver or lace decoration.

Under ordinary conditions the widow who re-marries, even as the mother of a bride, finds herself tempted to the paths of grey, and only occasionally lapses into the more triumphant glories of violet and pale blue and cream colour; and with the present fashion of enshrouding the hat or toque with a pendent veil, she may confidently share the grace of drapery with the virgin bride. Now and again during the past and the present centuries brides have thought fit to indulge their white satin simplicity with embroidery outlined with gold threads, and some have been sufficiently audacious to introduce a yellow-petalled daisy; and the revival of an old custom is the substitution of the prayer-book for the bouquet. But these are trivialities which obtain but scant attention, not even reaching the importance of a nine-days wonder. On the