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Then the white-flounced and black-laced figure reappeared as the departing wagon rattled away, glided to the centre of the room, placed on the trunk a small foot, whose low-quartered black satin slipper seemed to be held only by the toe, threw back with both hands the black lace mantilla, which was pinned by a rose over her little right ear, and with her hands slightly extended and waving softly said, "Mira caballeros!
On that day he was more carefully dressed than usual, wearing a black broadcloth coat, light trousers and vest, a white cravat, and low-quartered shoes. He knew what was in store for him, and a placid smile showed his satisfaction.
Her attire seemed that of a friar, even to the small scalloped cape that scantily covered her shoulders, and the coarse black serge, of which her strait gown was composed, leaving exposed her neatly though coarsely clad feet, with their snow-white home-knit stockings, and low-quartered, well-polished calf-skin shoes, confined with steel buckles, and elevated on heels, then worn by men alone.
George William Curtis put recently into his "Easy Chair" papers an artistically-touched little portrait: "Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New York. Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak a short garment that hung from the shoulders like the cape of a coat.
Her heavily flounced white skirt stopped short just above her white-stockinged ankles and little feet, hidden in white satin, low-quartered slippers. Her black silk, shell-like jacket half clasped her stayless bust clad in an under-bodice of soft muslin that faintly outlined a contour which struck him as already womanly.
She was not accustomed to walking in a country where "buggy-riding" was considered the only genteel young-lady-like mode of progression, and its regular provision the expected courtesy of mankind. Always fastidiously booted, her low-quartered shoes were charming to the eye, but hardly adapted to the dust and inequalities of the highroad.
They were no less the enemies of innovations. Coffee at its introduction was stigmatized as a devilish invention; tea was no better; as to tobacco, whether snuffed or smoked, it was worse yet. Low-necked dresses and low-quartered shoes were rigorously forbidden.
She was not accustomed to walking in a country where "buggy-riding" was considered the only genteel young, lady-like mode of progression, and its regular provision the expected courtesy of mankind. Always fastidiously booted, her low-quartered shoes were charming to the eye, but hardly adapted to the dust and inequalities of the high-road.
Even her arched feet and thin ankles, the close-fitting boots or small slippers of which were wont to accent their delicacy, were now lost in a short, low-quartered kid shoe of the Spanish type, in which they moved loosely. Her hair, which she had always worn with a certain Greek simplicity, was parted at one side.
"Irving was as quaint a figure," he says, "as the Diedrich Knickerbocker in the preliminary advertisement of the 'History of New York. Thirty years ago he might have been seen on an autumnal afternoon tripping with an elastic step along Broadway, with 'low-quartered' shoes neatly tied, and a Talma cloak a short garment that lung from the shoulders like the cape of a coat.
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