Part 3

XXIII.

If in a public promenade you repeatedly pass persons of your acquaintance, salute them only on the first occasion.

XXIV.

It is unladylike to cut a person; if you wish to rid yourself of any one’s society, a cold bow in the street, and particular ceremony in the circles of your mutual acquaintance, is the best mode to adopt.

XXV.

Always bow when meeting acquaintances in the street. To curtsy is not gracefully consistent with locomotion.

DRESS AND FASHION.

XXVI.

The plainest dress is always the most genteel, and a lady that dresses plainly will never be dressed unfashionably. Next to plainness, in every well-dressed lady, is neatness of dress and taste in the selection of colors.

XXVII.

Let your dress harmonize with your complexion, your size, and the circumstances in which you may be placed: for instance, the dress for walking, for a dinner or an evening party, each requires a different style of both material and ornament.

XXVIII.

Avoid the extreme mode; and, in adopting the style of your friend, be careful that it will suit your figure, your complexion, and stature: the dress which may be adapted to her may be absurd in you.

XXIX.

If your stature be short, you should not allow a superfluity of flounces upon the skirt of your dress: if you are tall, they may be advantageously adopted when fashion does not forbid them.

XXX.

A very high head-dress would not be suitable for a very tall or short person; the latter may venture upon a higher dress than the former. A person with a short neck should be careful as to the sort of frill she wears, if she considers one necessary; while a person with a very long one may relieve the awkwardness of the appearance by judiciously adopting this article of dress.

XXXI.

A hostess should not dress so richly as when she is a guest: it is good taste in a lady not to appear to vie with her guests in the richness of her attire.

XXXII.

Be not ostentatious in the display of jewelry: if, however, you have superb jewelry, your dress and your establishment should harmonize therewith, or the world will either not give you credit for their real worth, or it will charge you with ostentatious extravagance.

XXXIII.

Never wear mosaic gold or paste diamonds; they are representatives of a mean ambition to appear what you are not, and most likely what you ought not to wish to be.

XXXIV.

Let your ornaments be, then, more remarkable for their intrinsic worth, and for the taste with which they are chosen and worn, than for profusion.

XXXV.

Ladies of good taste seldom wear jewelry in the morning, and when they do, confine themselves to trinkets of gold, or those in which opaque stones only are introduced. Ornaments with brilliant stones are unsuited for a morning costume.

XXXVI.