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38, or it said they did. Carlo Maremma always swore that there was a little dressmaker who lived opposite his stable who could have told sad truths about many of these Paris-born toilettes; but no doubt Maremma was wrong, because men know nothing about these things, and are not aware that a practised eye can tell the sweep of Worth's scissors under the shoulder-blades as surely as a connoisseur recognises the hand of Boule or Vernis Martin on a cabinet or an étui. At any rate, the Penal Settlement swore it was adorned by Worth, Pingât and La Ferrière in all the glories and eccentricities imaginable of confections, unies and mélangées, Directoire and Premier Empire, Juive and Louis Quinze; and if talking about a theory could prove it, certainly they proved that they bore all Paris on their persons.

But there was something about her—it was difficult to say what; perhaps it was in the tip of her Pompadour boot, or perhaps it hid in the back widths of her skirt, or perhaps it lurked in the black sable fur of her dolman, but a something that made them feel there was