Two of these women were dressed like good townswomen of Paris. Their fine white gorgets, their red-and-white striped tiretaine skirts, their white knitted stockings, with coloured embroidery at the ankles, pulled trimly over the leg, their square shoes of fawn leather with black soles, and especially their headdress, a sort of tinsel horn loaded with ribbons and lace, such as women still wear in Champagne, in common with the grenadiers of the Russian Imperial Guard, proclaimed that they belonged to that class of rich tradespeople which comes midway between what servants call ‘a woman’ and what
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A middle class?
