It is true that clothes made of hemlock were not altogether comfortable at first, having some of the prickly qualities of the hair-shirt, but the very tittilation of the epidermis by their pointed spills, sharp sometimes as a needle, served to keep our blood in circulation, and consequently at all times warm and glowing.

And it all cost us nothing more than the labor of the harvest, but now, all is different.

The use of costly fabrics, woven stuffs, silks, satins and calicos, has introduced an added element of expense into our daily lives, and all to no useful purpose.

Take your Aunt Jerusha, for instance.

Where Mother Eve enjoyed as many different costumes as there were trees in the country without cost, all of them becoming, and wholly adequate, your Aunt Jerusha has to be satisfied with three or four gowns of indifferent fit, made by the village seamstress at an average cost of thirty or forty dollars apiece.