Page:Lady Barbarity; a romance (IA ladybarbarityrom00snai).pdf/144

 "Well, think about it," says I, coaxingly, "and remember this is your only chance of life. I do believe that I may save you thus. Besides, a boy of your height will make a very fine, tall woman."

This it was that moved him to the scheme. In a moment was he reconciled.

"Tall!" cries he. "Well, it's worth trying anyhow. And at least there's room in a woman's what-do-you-call-'ems to stow a pistol and a bit of ammunition?"

I assured him that there was.

Thereupon Emblem and I set about at once to prepare him for this disguise. The more I considered it, the more positive did I grow of its success. Our present mode seemed to have been invented to assist our audacious plan. Every lady of pretension must have her powder, her patch, and her great head-dress. The hooped skirt was then the fashion too. I placed the most elegant one I had at his disposal. That is to say, the biggest, for the larger they were the more "tonnish" they were considered. Indeed, the petticoat I procured him was of such capacity that it fitted over his masculine clothes with ease, and abolished the necessity for under-*linen, as his shirt and breeches fulfilled its duties admirably. We got him into this rich silk dress, with convolvulvi and mignonette brocaded on it, in the shortest space of time. The bodice, though, was a different affair. He had to remove his coat and vest ere we might venture to put it on at all. Then he had to be dragged into it by main force, till it