"Mrs.McMurray says all ladies do.

But we never wear it in Alexandretta, and it hurts." She clasped herself pathetically and turned her great imploring eyes on me.
"_Il faut souffrir pour etre belle_," I said.
"But with the figure of Mademoiselle, it is stupid!" cried Antoinette.
"It is outrageous that I should be called upon to express an opinion on such matters," I said, loftily.

And so it was.

My assertion of dignity impressed them.
Then, with characteristic frankness, my young lady shakes out before me things all frills, embroidery, ribbons, diaphaneity, which the ordinary man only examines through shop-front windows when a philosophic mood induces him to speculate on the unfathomable vanity of woman.
"_Les beaux dessous!_" breathed Antoinette.
"The same ejaculation," I murmured, "was doubtless uttered by an enraptured waiting-maid, when she beheld the stout linen smocks of the ladies of the Heptameron." I reflected on the relativity of things mundane.

The waiting-maid no doubt wore some horror made of hemp against her skin.