Page:The Idle Thoughts of an Idle Fellow, a Book for an Idle Holiday - Jerome (1886).djvu/166

 long. If you see two women together, you may bet your bottom dollar they are discussing their own or their friends' clothes. You notice a couple of child-like beings, conversing by a window, and you wonder what sweet, helpful words are falling from their sainted lips. So you move nearer, and then you hear one say—

"So I took in the waistband, and let out a seam, and it fits beautifully now."

"Well," says the other, "I shall wear my plumcoloured body to the Jones's, with a yellow plastron; and they've got some lovely gloves at Puttick's, only one and elevenpence."

I went for a drive through a part of Derbyshire once, with a couple of ladies. It was a beautiful bit of country, and they enjoyed themselves immensely. They talked dressmaking the whole time.

"Pretty view, that," I would say, waving my umbrella round. "Look at those blue, distant hills! That little white speck, nestling in the woods, is Chatsworth, and over there"

"Yes, very pretty indeed," one would reply. "Well, why not get a yard of sarsenet?"

"What, and leave the skirt exactly as it is?"

"Certainly. What place d'ye call this?"

Then I would draw their attention to the fresh beauties that kept sweeping into view, and they would glance round, and say "charming," "sweetly pretty," and immediately go off into raptures over each other's