At General G ­’s reception the other night, the most fashionably dressed lady was Mrs. G. C. She wore a pink satin dress, plain in front but with a good deal of rake to it ­to the train, I mean; it was said to be two or three yards long.  One could see it creeping along the floor some little time after the woman was gone.  Mrs. C. wore also a white bodice, cut bias, with Pompadour sleeves, flounced with ruches; low neck, with the inside handkerchief not visible, with white kid gloves.  She had on a pearl necklace, which glinted lonely, high up the midst of that barren waste of neck and shoulders.  Her hair was frizzled into a tangled chaparral, forward of her ears, aft it was drawn together, and compactly bound and plaited into a stump like a pony’s tail, and furthermore was canted upward at a sharp angle, and ingeniously supported by a red velvet crupper, whose forward extremity was made fast with a half-hitch around a hairpin on the top of her head.  Her whole top hamper was neat and becoming.  She had a beautiful complexion when she first came, but it faded out by degrees in an unaccountable way.  However, it is not lost for good.  I found the most of it on my shoulder afterward. (I stood near the door when she squeezed out with the throng.) There were other ladies present, but I only took notes of one as a specimen.  I would gladly enlarge upon the subject were I able to do it justice.