Archer had been wont to smile at these annual vaticinations of his mother’s; but this year even he was obliged to acknowledge, as he listened to an enumeration of the changes, that the “trend” was visible.

“The extravagance in dress—­” Miss Jackson began.  “Sillerton took me to the first night of the Opera, and I can only tell you that Jane Merry’s dress was the only one I recognised from last year; and even that had had the front panel changed.  Yet I know she got it out from Worth only two years ago, because my seamstress always goes in to make over her Paris dresses before she wears them.”

“Ah, Jane Merry is one of us,” said Mrs. Archer sighing, as if it were not such an enviable thing to be in an age when ladies were beginning to flaunt abroad their Paris dresses as soon as they were out of the Custom House, instead of letting them mellow under lock and key, in the manner of Mrs. Archer’s contemporaries.

“Yes; she’s one of the few.  In my youth,” Miss Jackson rejoined, “it was considered vulgar to dress in the newest fashions; and Amy Sillerton has always told me that in Boston the rule was to put away one’s Paris dresses for two years.  Old Mrs. Baxter Pennilow, who did everything handsomely, used to import twelve a year, two velvet, two satin, two silk, and the other six of poplin and the finest cashmere.  It was a standing order, and as she was ill for two years before she died they found forty-eight Worth dresses that had never been taken out of tissue paper; and when the girls left off their mourning they were able to wear the first lot at the Symphony concerts without looking in advance of the fashion.”

“Ah, well, Boston is more conservative than New York; but I always think it’s a safe rule for a lady to lay aside her French dresses for one season,” Mrs. Archer conceded.

“It was Beaufort who started the new fashion by making his wife clap her new clothes on her back as soon as they arrived:  I must say at times it takes all Regina’s distinction not to look like . . . like . . .”  Miss Jackson glanced around the table, caught Janey’s bulging gaze, and took refuge in an unintelligible murmur.

“Like her rivals,” said Mr. Sillerton Jackson, with the air of producing an epigram.

“Oh,—­” the ladies murmured; and Mrs. Archer added, partly to distract her daughter’s attention from forbidden topics:  “Poor Regina!  Her Thanksgiving hasn’t been a very cheerful one, I’m afraid.  Have you heard the rumours about Beaufort’s speculations, Sillerton?”

Mr. Jackson nodded carelessly.  Every one had heard the rumours in question, and he scorned to confirm a tale that was already common property.