Once the farthingaled and red-heeled gentry came in sluggish barges to Matocton, and the broad river on which the estate faces was thick with bellying sails; since the days of railroads, one approaches the mansion through the maple-grove in the rear, and enters ignominiously by the back-door.

The age had not so much refinement, that any sense of impropriety kept the wearers of petticoats and farthingales from elbowing their way through the densest throngs to witness the executions.

By my faith, that spoils all the former, for these farthingales take up all the room now-a-days; 'tis not a woman, questionless.

I showed them her Majesty's picture' (doubtless in ruff, farthingale, and stomacher laden with jewels), 'which they so admired and honoured, as it had been easy to make them idolatrous thereof.'

[5010]Now long tails and trains, and then short, up, down, high, low, thick, thin, &c.; now little or no bands, then as big as cart wheels; now loose bodies, then great farthingales and close girt, &c.

I think I hear a lady reader exclaim,Mrs. Farthingale, for example, who prefers the ideal in fiction; to whom tragedy means ermine tippets, adultery and murder; and comedy, the adventures of some personage who is quite a "character.

Others would throw over their shoulders damask counterpanes of priceless old brocade, peasant skirts with great flowers of gold, farthingales of richly woven texture that crackled like paper.

As souvenirs of the white-wigged personages and ladies of voluminous farthingales who had passed through this palace, there were still some classic busts on the landing places, a hand-wrought iron railing, and various huge lanterns of dull gold and blurred glass.

Some will have it that it portends the Downfal of the French King, and observe that the Farthingale appeared in England a little before the Ruin of the Spanish Monarchy.

Then as an overdressed, florid woman, with high bullhead fringe and old-fashioned Spanish farthingale, quickly obeyed his behests, he said with a coarse laugh:

She darted in and out between the tables, managing her unwieldy farthingale with amazing skill.

I am Baltic-bred, and have ever held to thisthat you may sail unscathed through fleets of farthingales, so being that you keep the wind well on your quarter, and see the fair-way clear before you.

"Ah! yes, you follow indeed," he said, bitterly, "but it is the trip of feet, the flirt of farthingales down the turret steps.

198. throughout continuing to urge the vanity of outward appearance, in reference to the "ruffs and cuffs, and farthingales and things," which he had promised her, and with which the phrase "honest mean habiliments" is used in contrast.

" "With ruffs, and cuffs, and farthingales and things.

Mother, kneeling on the carpet beside him, like the faithful, ruffed, and farthingaled wife on a fifteenth-century tomb.

What she did see in the ball was a tall, pale lady, 'about forty, but looking thirty-five,' with hair drawn back from the brows, standing beside a high chair, dressed in a wide farthingale of stiff grey brocade, without a ruff.

A lively little brunette was Madame Bonaventure, still young, or, at all events, very far from being old; with extremely fine teeth, which she was fond of displaying, and a remarkably neat ankle, which she felt no inclination to hide beneath the sweep of her round circling farthingale.

Our fore-mothers who rejoiced in farthingales had, no doubt, the most costly attire, but it lasted longer, and became the inheritance of children and children's children; besides which their wardrobes were not by any means so expensive as that of a "grande dame" of 1875.

At this, the delighted queen, sitting in stiff ruff and farthingale among her maids of honour, burst out above all the tumult with "Oh, excellent!

If you wish to overhaul our cargo, you must look sharply into the cuffs and aprons, the negligees and stomachers of the Governor's lady, at the next ball at the fort; or pry into the sail that is set above the farthingales of the wife and daughters of your Admiralty Judge!

But the race is extinct; you might as well look for hoops and farthingales in society as for such characters now.