(like Celtic dirks); and the multi-coloured
little boots you see in the Gostinnoï-Dvor,
made of scarlet, yellow, sky-blue, black-
topped with red, and sometimes white leather,
which last, with a little pair of gilt spurs, are
really delectable to look upon. As the children
become older, these pretty dresses are thrown
aside, and the boys become slaves (thrice noble
and slave-possessing though they be), and
are ticketted, and numbered, and registered,
and drilled, and taught many languages,
and not one honest or ennobling thing: for
the greater glory of God, and our Lord the
Czar. Would you quarrel with me for
liking children in fancy dresses? In truth,
I love to see them as fantastically-gaily
dressed as silk, and velvet, and gay colours,
and artistic taste can make them. Never
mind the cross patches who sneer about us
in England, and say our children look like
little Highland kilt-stalkers, and little ballet-
girls. I would rather that, than that they
should look like little Quakers, or little tailors,
or little bankers, or little beneficed clergymen,
or little donkies, which last-named is
the similitude assumed by the asinine jacket,
trousers, frill, and round hat. Dress up the
children like the characters in the story-
books. They don't belong to our world
yet; they are our living story-books in
themselves, the only links we have between those
glorious castles in the air and these grim
banks, talking-shops, and union workhouses,
on earth, here. I regret that the Russians
do not oftener extend their picturesque choice
of wardrobe to the little girls. Now and
again, but very, very rarely, I have seen some
infant Gossudarinia—some little lady of six
or eight summers—dressed in the long,
straight, wide-sleeved farthingale, the velvet
and jewelled kakoschnik like the painted
aureole of a Byzantine saint, the long lace
veil, the broad girdle tied in an X knot at the
stomacher, and the embroidered slippers with
golden heels, which still form the costume de
cour of the Russian ladies; but in too many
instances the pernicious influence of Mesdames
Zoë Falcon and Jessie Field, Marchandes de
Modes, have been predominant; and the
little girls are dressed after the execrable
engravings in the fashion-books, in flimsy
gauze and artificial flower bonnets, many-
fringed mantelettes, many-flounced skirts,
lace-edged pantalettes, open-work stockings
(pink silk, of course!), and bronzed-kit bottines.
I mind the time when little girls at
home used to be dressed prettily, quaintly,
like little gipsies or little Swiss shepherdesses;
but I shudder for the day now when, returning
to England, I shall see small Venuses
swaying down Regent Street with iron-hooped
petticoats, and decapitated sugar-loaf-like
Talmas, and birdcage bonnets half off their
little heads. Why not have the paniers—the
real hoops—back, ladies, at once: the red-
headen mules, patches, hair-powder, and all
the rest of the Louis Quinze Wardour-Street
shoppery, not forgetting the petits soupers,
and the Abbés, and the Madelonnettes, and
the Parc aux Cerfs. Be consistent. You
borrow your hoops from the French ladies'
great grandmothers—are there no traditions
of their morals to be imported, as good as
new in this year fifty-six?

To reform female costume is far beyond my
powers. Much might be done, perhaps, by
administering forty blows with a stick to
every male worker in metals convicted of
forging steel sous-jupes, and by sentencing
every female constructor of a birdcage bonnet
to learn by heart the names and addresses of
all the petitioners against Sunday park bands.
Still I am moved by a humble ambition to
introduce a new little boy-costume into my
native country. Very many of the Russian
gentry dress their children in the exact
costume (in miniature) of our old friend the
Ischvostchik, and few dresses, certainly, could
be so picturesque, so quaint, and so thoroughly
Russian. There is a small nephew of mine
somewhere on the southern English coast,
and whom (supposing him to have surmounted
that last jam-pot difficulty by this time) I
intend, with his parents' permission, to dress
in this identical Ischvostchik's costume. I
see, in my mind's eye, that young Christian
walking down the High Street, the pride of
his papa and mamma, clad in a gala costume
of Muscovite fashioning—a black velvet
caftan with silver sugar-loaf buttons, and
an edging of braid; a regular-built
Ischvostchik's hat with a peacock's feather;
baggy little breeches of the bed-ticking
design; and little boots with scarlet tops! Bran
new from the Gostinnoï-Dvor have I the hats
and boots. The custom-house officers of four
nations have already examined and admired
them, and—doubtless in their tenderness for
little boys—have allowed them to pass dutyfree.
There only remain the stern-faced men in the
shabby coats at the Dover Douane, to turn
my trunks into a Hampton Court maze, and I
shall be able to bring those articles of apparel
safely to the desired haven. Who knows
but I may introduce a new fashion among
the youth of this land; that the apothecary,
the lawyer, nay, the great mayor's wife
of Bevistown, may condescend eventually
to array her offspring after the fashion I
set! Lord Petersham had his coat; Count
D'Orsay his hat; Blucher his boot, Hobson
his choice, Howqua his mixture, Bradshaw
his guide, Daffy his elixir, and Sir John
Cutler his stockings,—why may I not aspire
to the day when in cheap tailors' windows I
may see a diminutive waxen figure arrayed
in the Ischvostchik's costume I have imported
and made popular?

Some of these little children's boots are
quite marvels in the way of gold and
silver embroidery. The Russians are nearly
as skilful in this branch of industry as
the Beguines of Flanders; and since the
general confiscation of ecclesiastical property