-Sir J.A. Foster, Jeffersonian America (1811)

John Augustus Foster, British ambassador to the United States in 1811, travels the young country, is most impressed with Connecticut.

“There is a cleanliness and an English air about everything,” he writes, “even to the labourers who take off their hats in passing you, which one meets with nowhere else.”

Those to whom the hats are tipped (known as “the Standing Order”) can do as they please, of course, as long as they don’t frighten the horses; a fact still remembered in some Nutmeg State circles.

Here, for example, is the outfit our own Connecticut Lady is wearing to this year’s Blessing of the Hounds. Nothing really matches, exactly, and yet it all works together quite nicely.

That’s the way she likes it.

Taffeta Silk Skirt (No. 2546), a mid-calf cut of material that’s been an emblem of elegance since Mr. Shakespeare’s day (“taffeta phrases, silken terms”), with lots of crisp, stitched-down pleats. The wide self belt is removable.