Show Dressing Children Alike cl never saw a family of girls out in dresses of the same sort without a deep wave of pity for them rolls over my soul said a very intelligent and wealthy woman as she noted a dress alike family passing down the street I remember when I was a little girl it was though quite the correct thing to dress the children alike so a piece of goods was bought the stereotyped number of hats just so many sprays of flowers just so many yards of ribbon and material for the regular number of cloaks sacques or jackets as the case might be Sometimes we wore shawls and oh wasnt that a delightful happening hap-pening when by no hook or crook could two shawls be found alike One year we were to have shawls but because there could be no uniformity uniform-ity for the reason that the assortment contained only those differing widely in style and color the idea of shawls was abandoned altogether and we were put into long cloaks of gray Irish frieze and oh how angry and disgusted we were There were two or three families in our neighborhood that adhered to this custom others dressed as unlike as possible and those unlikers were the objects of no end of envy on the part of our little folk I think it would b difficult for any person who has not been through the experience to imagine how desperately tired we grew of our gew clothes and equally tired of course of those of our sisters for they were exactly the same The only advantage that I can now see as I look back was that if the elder sister hadnt worn her dress out the next one could take it and nobody knew the difference This was the only grace that I ever discovered in the leftovers and secondhand sec-ondhand clothes arrangement of the family I seems to me little less than 1 cruelty to deprive children of the Variety va-riety and pleasure of original and pretty garments I used to think as we sat in church that we resembled a row of little brown ug assorted sizes when we were arrayed in our sombre garments gar-ments Pink blue white and scarlet are childrens colors and i seems in judicious and unwise to do them up in dull tints like animated brown paper packages There are dullness and monotony mo-notony and soberness enough in life without bringing them into the dresses and bonnets of little girls New York Ledger grlsNew |