weather, but let me hope it is settled with you, and that she is able to take her rides  Mrs. Siddons' letter also reflected the commonly held notion that the changes produced by the progress of consumption were attractive upon the face of its victim, as she wrote "of watching each change of her lovely, varying, interesting countenance.

By August, Mrs. Siddons's letters to Mrs. Pennington revealed her resignation to, and acceptance of, Maria's fate. "Mine is the habitation of sickness and sorrow. My dear and kind friend, be assur'd I rely implicitly on your truth to me and tenderness to my Sweet Maria. I do not flatter myself that she will be long continued to me. The Will of God be done; but I hope, I hopethe "doll-like.

Dress remained of vital importance in defining women during the Romantic period. The author of the _Kalogynomia_ (1821) argued "the woman who possesses a cultivated taste and a corresponding expression of countenance, will generally be tastefully dressed; and the vulgar woman, with features correspondingly rude, will easily be seen through the inappropriate mask in which her milliner or dress-maker may have invested her. By 1825, the new silhouette was firmly established, defined by an increasingly widening skirt and progressively contracted waist. An ostensibly V-shaped bodice emerged, one with enlarged shoulders, made to appear even more so by expansive collars and rapidly growing sleeves, a trend that would continue until the mid-1830s. Headgear and hairstyles also increased in size and complexity and were elaborately decorated with artificial flowers,