on. In the evening, when retiring to rest, the same persons paid their visit and performed the contrary operation.
At these visits, the head-mistress would measure, calculate and take careful note of the effects of the lacing on the ever diminishing size of the pupil's waists.
The night-corset was scarcely in any respect different from the day-corset. The former however, was of strong linen, instead of brocaded silk. Its busks and whalebones were less stiff and unyielding and close than in the case of the day-corset. But as regarded the sole particular which aroused any interest in the victim, the lacing, in both cases, remained the same.
The same set of rules sufficed for the other boys and girls of the school. In the case of the 'Three Wasps,' and Virginia Malville, there was a special and severe code. It was upon Virginia that these regulations of a severer order weighed heaviest. Both as regards her corset boots, and gloves, the head-mistress was pitiless. Ne relaxation of their discipline was ever permitted in Virginia's case.
To do justice to the truth, it must be acknowledged that the girl so attired had a very distinguished and attractive appearance.
Her tallness was accentuated by her high heels. Her sculptural leg and aristocratic foot were shown to their very best advantage in the arched boots reaching up the leg as far as the swelling calf. Her fine sloping shoulders and classic throat gained a perfection of outline (if such had previously been lacking) from the corset compressing the waist to a space easily encircled by the ten fingers. Her plump arm showed a glimpse of its pure white satin beauty just above the elbow where the long, black kid glove ended. Her hand was long and slender, that of a lady of noble birth skilled in the weaving of tapestry. One could imagine a hunting-glove worn to protect those tapering fingers from the fierce falcon poised upon my lady's wrist as her champing palfrey bore her to the chase.
Had Lord Malville seen his daughter at this moment, he would certainly have been astonished, proud, and happy.
Formerly the haughty girl had shown her self conscious of her charms. It was not so now. The difficulty of breathing was now the only thing of which she thought, for so soon as she became in the least degree used to any measurement in her stays, the headmistress gave directions that the lacing should be tighter.
Where would matters stop?
We all asked the question, though with more curiosity than pity. Each of us had sufficient personal discomfort to put up with without thinking too much about Miss Malville's troubles, however real they might be to that young lady.
The girl was forced to veil her feelings in a constant smile, for such was the head mistress's desire. She ordained that smile in tones there was no disputing. It was necessary to smile.
Virginia was of a deathly pallor whose ghastliness every now and then alternated with the deep red flush which would involuntarily rise to her cheeks to prove her sufferings. From time to time, she coughed and, when she thought she was unobserved, spat into her handkerchief, her expectoration betraying a thin streak of blood. Then she would smile perpetually, like one of those panting ballet-girls, also laced tightly in torturing corsets while going through their violent exercises. They always appear content, whether they are balancing on the tips of their toes, or submitting after their exertions to the cold draughts of the stage or greenroom. For the spectators they have always the same delighted smile.
Poor Virginia, whose role was so similar, had, at the expense of her own feelings and sufferings, to make a parade of joy for the benefit of Lady Flayskin and for the pleasure of the aristocratic circles with whom the directress's influence and popularity were of so pronounced a nature.
After dinner, a meal magnificently served, as befitted the occasion and the great wealth of the bridegroom, we were taken to a large room which was afterwards to be our dormitory for the night. Here we washed ourselves and made as perfect a toilet as was possible. Lady Flayskin's severe and vigilant eye was upon us, all the time, nor did that lady fail to improve the occasion by lecturing us in her usual half sermonizing, half reprimanding manner.
She told us that at this evening's party we should see represented all the families of the neighbourhood, the very cream of local society. All were anxious to pay a tribute of respect to Mr. Gostock on his wedding day, and a tribute of admiration to the pupils of Lady Flayskin's establishment who were known to be among the guests.
Lady Flayskin asked us, parenthetically, to admire the mysterious ways of Providence, who had, so to speak, taken Mr. Gostock by the hand and conducted him to the celebrated establishment of which we were members, with the sole aim of enabling him to appreciate the solid and excellent qualities of Miss Stella and of thus deciding him to make that young lady his lawful wife in the presence of God and men.
Here Lady Flayskin closed her parenthesis, but thought it fitting to commence another immediately. With lowered voice and finger laid upon her lips, looking about with an air of extraordinary discretion and circumspection, she informed us that Stella had been but a poor orphan, but that she, Lady Flayskin, had discovered her nascent sterling qualities when the girl was only ten years old.
This example of evangelistic charity next served her ladyship as text for a discourse upon the beauties of the discipline of the corset, gloves and high-heeled high boots, in short upon all the virtues of kid. She, however, omitted to allude to the virtues of the rod, prime cause of the good fortune of whipping Stella.
She further earnestly exhorted us to be polite and well-mannered, as befitted guests in such distinguished company. She added (and thought it fitting at this part of her discourse to assume an enigmatic smile) that if the corset of Stella had made so marvellous a conquest, there was room to hope that all the other young ladies, whose corsets were similarly tight-laced, would be similarly fortunate. As to be the boys, she said, marriage was not for the present to occupy their juvenile thoughts. They must, however, strive this evening, by their modest mien and becoming conduct, to show themselves worthy of the establishment whose privileges they were permitted to enjoy, and of the feminine costume in which that establishment's regulations, for their highest good and in their best interests, thought fit to clothe them.
After this curious speech, which had lasted a good half-hour by the clock, permission was given us to walk in the garden. We accordingly gratefully accepted this pleasure and I noticed in Mr. Gostock's fine park many a blackbird's and thrush's nest which I should doubtess have attempted to secure hod my garments been in the least degree those of a boy.
For that matter, neither boys nor girls thought of playing any of the games or indulging in any of the occupations natural to their age. Our costume forbade any such indulgence, and we only thought of such relaxations to regret our incapacity to take part therein. How could we run or jump with these narrow boots, these inconvenient high heels; how could the skipping-rope be used when this terrible corset was worn? After every leap, our intestines would infallibly have been reduced to mere pulp. How could we play at leapfrog while wearing these close-fitting drawers? Even the simple humble hoop was denied us, for it would have endangered the bursting of our gloves which we were stringently forbid den to take off.
We therefore walked in little groups down the shady paths, occupied in the sole amusement in which we were free to indulge, that of gossip and scandalmongering.
It was either the effect of the corset, that garment whose eulogy we were weary of hearing and whose moral and physical influence was so deleterious, it was either, I say, this, or the example we ever had before us in our bitter-tongued directress, but in any case – be the cause what it might-we showed ourselves on this day thorough little hypocrites in the perfidy and the honeyed virulence of our remarks. In this respect, the boys were not a whit behind the girls. Each of us was skilled alike in stabbing with the tongue; each of us, upon this occasion, showed what talons could be concealed beneath a velvet paw; what fangs behind the sweetness of a smile.
It was the corset which added years to our young shoulders, and turned little boys into elderly roues or repulsive caricatures of the opposite sex.
In the case of both girls and boys, the chief preoccupation was this accursed corset. We were proud of our slender waists. We could not find terms sufficiently mocking or contemptuous to describe women unconnected with our establishment. What sacks they were! How heavy! How thick! We found the prettiest of girls to be common- looking, graceless and shapeless. It did not even occur to us, so taken up were we with our own elegance, as we thought it to be, that others would have been precisely as we, had they too passed through the skilled hands of Lady Flayskin, the champion of corset discipline.
Thus came about the natural but disastrous result that we grew to love the chains which bound us.
For the girls there remained some hope. But the boys!
In our case, it was ruin absolute and final; that canker which gnaws into all succeeding years. All desire to wrestle for and gain our meed of honour in the battle of life was stifled for ever in these early days. We were left
