Muslin garibaldis, for coolness, and our "second-best" skirts.
Eleanor, Matilda, and I shared one room.

On the first Wednesday evening after our arrival at Bush House we were dressing as usual, when Emma ran in.
"I'm so sorry I forgot to tell you," said she; "you mustn't put on your muslin bodies to-night.

The arithmetic-master is coming after tea." "I don't understand," said Eleanor, who was standing on one leg as usual, and who paused in a struggle with a refractory elastic sandal to look up with a puckered brow, and general bewilderment.

"What has the arithmetic to do with our dresses ?" Emma's saucy mouth and snub nose twitched with amusement, as she replied in exact mimicry of Madame's broken English: "Have you so little of delicacy as to ask, mademoiselle?
Should the young ladies of this establishment expose their shoulders in the transparency of muslin to a professor ?" Matilda and I burst out laughing at Emma's excellent imitation of Madame; but Eleanor dropped her foot to the floor with a stamp that broke the sandal, and burst forth into an indignant torrent of words, which was only stayed by the necessity for resuming our morning dresses, and hastening down-stairs.

There Eleanor swallowed her wrath with her weak tea; and I remember puzzling myself, to the neglect of mine, as to the probable connection between arithmetic-masters and transparent bodices..