Page:Passages from the Life of a Philosopher.djvu/382

366 Sketches were made and modists of the purest water were employed. The result was, upon the whole, highly satisfactory. One evening, however, the arrival of the new dress was postponed to so late a period, that I feared it had entirely escaped the recollection of the executive department. The hour at which my friends usually arrived was rapidly approaching.

In this difficulty it occurred to me that there were a few remnants of beautiful Chinese crape in the silver lady's wardrobe. Having selected two strips, one of pink and the other of light green, I hastily wound a platted band of bright auburn hair round the block on which her head-dresses were usually constructed, and then pinned on the folds of coloured crape. This formed a very tolerable turban, and was not much unlike a kind of head-dress called a toke, which prevailed at that period. Another larger piece of the same pink Chinese crape I wound round her person, which I thought showed it off to considerable advantage. Fortunately, I found in her wardrobe a pair of small pink satin slippers, on each of which I fixed a single silver spangle: then placing a small silver crescent in the front of her turban, I felt I had accomplished all that time and circumstances permitted.

The criticisms on the costume of the Silver Lady were various. In the course of the evening, Lady Morgan communicated to me confidentially her own opinion of the dress.

Holding up her fan, she whispered, "My dear Mr. Babbage, I think your Silver Lady is rather slightly clad to-night; shall I lend her a petticoat?" to which I replied, "My dear Lady Morgan, I am much indebted for your very considerate offer, but I fear you have not got one to spare."

This retort was not a pun, but merely a "double-entendre." It might mean either that her Ladyship had on invisibles, but