What must you pay for your habit?  You may pay three hundred dollars, if you like, although that price is seldom charged, unless to customers who seem desirous of paying if, but the usual scale runs downward from one hundred and fifty dollars.  This includes cloth and all other materials, and finish as perfect within as without, and is not dear, considering the retail price of cloth, the careful making, and the touch of style which only practised hands can give.  The heavy meltons worn for hunting habits in England cost seven dollars a yard; English tweeds which have come into vogue during the last few years in London, cost six dollars, broadcloth five dollars; rough, uncut cheviots, about six dollars; and shepherds’ checks, single width, about two dollars and a half.  For waistcoats, duck costs two dollars and a quarter a yard, and fancy flannels and Tattersall checks anywhere from one dollar and a half to two dollars.  The heavy cloths are the most economical in the end, because they do not wear out where the skirt is stretched over the pommel, the point at which a light material is very soon in tatters.

The small, flat buttons cost twenty-five cents a dozen; the fine black sateen used for linings may be bought for thirty-five cents a yard, and canvas for interlinings for twenty-five cents.  With these figures you may easily make your own computations as to the cost of material, for unless a woman is “more than common tall,” two yards and a half will be more than enough for her habit skirt, which should not rest an inch on the ground on the left side when she stands, and should not be more than a quarter of a yard longer in its longest part.  Two lengths, with allowance for the hem two inches deep are needed for the skirt, and when very heavy melton is used, the edges are left raw, the perfect riding skirt in modern eyes being that which shows no trace of the needle, an end secured with lighter cloths by pressing all the seams before hemming, and then very lightly blind-stitching the pointed edges in their proper place.

Strength is not desirable in the sewing of a habit skirt.  It is always possible that one may be thrown, and the substantial stitching which will hold one to pommel and stirrup may be fatal to life.  So hems are constructed to tear away easily, and seams are run rather than stitched, or stitched with fine silk, and the cloth is not too firmly secured to the wide sateen belt.  The English safety skirts, invented three or four years ago, have the seam on the knee-gore open from the knee down to the edge, and the two breadths are caught together with buttons and elastic loops, all sewed on very lightly so as to give way easily.  The effect of this style of cutting is, if one be thrown, to transform one into a flattered or libelous likeness of Lilian Russell in her naval uniform, prepared to scamper away from one’s horse, and from any other creatures with eyes, but with one’s bones unbroken and one’s face unscathed by being dragged and pounded over the road, or by being kicked.