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When the rumblings of the Revolutionary earthquake began to make themselves heard in earnest, the gingerbread aristocracy came tumbling down in a hurry, and the old, invincible spirit, temporarily screened by the waving of scented handkerchiefs, the flutter of fans, and the swish of hoop-skirts, made itself once more manifest and dominant.
"Yes," said Miss Featherstone, "and, to say the truth, the American hoop-skirts are the only ones fit to wear. When we were living on the Champs Élysées, I remember we searched high and low for something like them, and finally had to send home to America for some." "Well," said I, "that shows what I said. Let there be only a hearty call for an article and it will come.
Wasn't she nice? She died when she was twenty-nine. Dear Margery Lee," she added softly. "Can't you see her, Harry?" "Yes, Sally Carrol." He felt a little hand insert itself into his. "She was dark, I think; and she always wore her hair with a ribbon in it, and gorgeous hoop-skirts of Alice blue and old rose." "Yes." "Oh, she was sweet, Harry!
Here and there in the vacant lots abandoned hoop-skirts defied decay; and near the half-finished wooden houses, empty mortar-beds, and bits of lath and slate strewn over the scarred and mutilated ground, added their interest to the scene.
"It isn't Featherlooms. It's McChesney. Her line is no better than ours. It's her personality, not her petticoats. She's got a following that swears by her. If Maude Adams was to open on Broadway in 'East Lynne, they'd flock to see her, wouldn't they? Well, Emma McChesney could sell hoop-skirts, I'm telling you. She could sell bustles. She could sell red-woolen mittens on Fifth Avenue!"
Behind that frontier wide-stacked wood-burning locomotives were drawing long trains on tracks of steel; steamers came sighing up and down the muddy rivers; cities smeared the sky with clouds of coal smoke; under those sooty palls men in high hats and women in enormous hoop-skirts passed in afternoon promenade down the sidewalks; newspapers displayed the day's tidings in black head-lines; the telegraph flashed messages from one end of that land to the other; and where the sharp church steeple of the most remote village cut the sky, the people read and thought and talked the same things which were being discussed in Delmonico's at the same hour.
I am so sorry for her, but then you know that she used to put on quite as many airs as her position justified. P.S. Hoop-skirts are getting smaller every month, and some are confident that they will go entirely out of fashion by next year. I do so hope not. I so dread having to cme back to the old way of wearing a whole clothes-basketful of white skirts.
Many of the vacant lots abutting upon Benicia and the intersecting streets flourished up, during the four years we knew it, into fresh-painted wooden houses, and the time came to be when one might have looked in vain for the abandoned hoop-skirts which used to decorate the desirable building-sites.
Some wore women's hats, some crinoline hoop-skirts over their shoulders; others brandished boots and shirts, and one glistening brave swung a banjo at arm's-length over his flying horse's head. Another party of the despoilers discovered a shipment of silks and satins.
See, she's just going into the post-office now." "Quindaro!" exclaimed Sandy. "Why, I thought Quindaro was a squaw." "She's a full-blooded Delaware Indian girl, that's what she is, and she was educated somewhere East in the States; and this town is named for her. She owns all the land around here, and is the belle of the place." "She's got on hoop-skirts, too," said Oscar.
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