shaved-whalebone

Updated: May 5, 2025

But, however the probabilities may appear, Miss Wimple's Hoop was a shaved-whalebone fact; and the quilted petticoat would never have been missed, but for the officious scrutiny of the eyes, and the provoking prating of the tongues, of a sophisticated few who marvelled greatly at the pliancy and the "perfect set" of Miss Wimple's Alboni, "and that demure little prig, too! who'd have thought it?"

Various - The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 02, No. 13, November, 1858