The Old Wives Tale | Page 8

ready to go to bed. One held a little girl by the hand; it
could not have been her own little girl, for these princesses were far
beyond human passions. Where had she obtained the little girl? Why
was one sister going to the theatre, another to tea, another to the stable,
and another to bed? Why was one in a heavy mantle, and another
sheltering from the sun's rays under a parasol? The picture was
drenched in mystery, and the strangest thing about it was that all these
highnesses were apparently content with the most ridiculous and
out-moded fashions. Absurd hats, with veils flying behind; absurd
bonnets, fitting close to the head, and spotted; absurd coiffures that
nearly lay on the nape; absurd, clumsy sleeves; absurd waists, almost
above the elbow's level; absurd scolloped jackets! And the skirts! What
a sight were those skirts! They were nothing but vast decorated
pyramids; on the summit of each was stuck the upper half of a princess.
It was astounding that princesses should consent to be so preposterous
and so uncomfortable. But Sophia perceived nothing uncanny in the
picture, which bore the legend: "Newest summer fashions from Paris.
Gratis supplement to Myra's Journal." Sophia had never imagined
anything more stylish, lovely, and dashing than the raiment of the
fifteen princesses.
For Constance and Sophia had the disadvantage of living in the middle
ages. The crinoline had not quite reached its full circumference, and the
dress-improver had not even been thought of. In all the Five Towns
there was not a public bath, nor a free library, nor a municipal park, nor
a telephone, nor yet a board- school. People had not understood the
vital necessity of going away to the seaside every year. Bishop Colenso
had just staggered Christianity by his shameless notions on the
Pentateuch. Half Lancashire was starving on account of the American

war. Garroting was the chief amusement of the homicidal classes.
Incredible as it may appear, there was nothing but a horse-tram running
between Bursley and Hanbridge--and that only twice an hour; and
between the other towns no stage of any kind! One went to Longshaw
as one now goes to Pekin. It was an era so dark and backward that one
might wonder how people could sleep in their beds at night for thinking
about their sad state.
Happily the inhabitants of the Five Towns in that era were passably
pleased with themselves, and they never even suspected that they were
not quite modern and quite awake. They thought that the intellectual,
the industrial, and the social movements had gone about as far as these
movements could go, and they were amazed at their own progress.
Instead of being humble and ashamed, they actually showed pride in
their pitiful achievements. They ought to have looked forward meekly
to the prodigious feats of posterity; but, having too little faith and too
much conceit, they were content to look behind and make comparisons
with the past. They did not foresee the miraculous generation which is
us. A poor, blind, complacent people! The ludicrous horse-car was
typical of them. The driver rang a huge bell, five minutes before
starting, that could he heard from the Wesleyan Chapel to the Cock
Yard, and then after deliberations and hesitations the vehicle rolled off
on its rails into unknown dangers while passengers shouted good-bye.
At Bleakridge it had to stop for the turnpike, and it was assisted up the
mountains of Leveson Place and Sutherland Street (towards Hanbridge)
by a third horse, on whose back was perched a tiny, whip-cracking boy;
that boy lived like a shuttle on the road between Leveson Place and
Sutherland Street, and even in wet weather he was the envy of all other
boys. After half an hour's perilous transit the car drew up solemnly in a
narrow street by the Signal office in Hanbridge, and the ruddy driver,
having revolved many times the polished iron handle of his sole brake,
turned his attention to his passengers in calm triumph, dismissing them
with a sort of unsung doxology.
And this was regarded as the last word of traction! A whip- cracking
boy on a tip horse! Oh, blind, blind! You could not foresee the hundred
and twenty electric cars that now rush madly bumping and thundering

at twenty miles an hour through all the main streets of the district!
So that naturally Sophia, infected with the pride of her period, had no
misgivings whatever concerning the final elegance of the princesses.
She studied them as the fifteen apostles of the ne plus ultra; then,
having taken some flowers and plumes out of a box, amid warnings
from Constance, she retreated behind the glass, and presently emerged
as a great lady in the style of the princesses. Her mother's tremendous
new