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Fine feathers make fine fowls.

Therefore, "If you want a wife choose her on Saturday, not on Sunday" (Spanish);ssss1 i.e., choose her in undress. "No woman is ugly when she is dressed" (Spanish);ssss1 at least, she is not so in her own opinion. "The swarthy dame, dressed fine, decries the fair one" (Spanish).ssss1

The fairer the hostess the fouler the reckoning.

"A handsome landlady is bad for the purse" (French);ssss1 for this among other reasons—that "If the landlady is fair, the wine too is fair" (German).ssss1

A bonny bride is sune buskit.

Buskit—dressed. She needs little adornment to enhance her charms.

Joan is as good as my lady in the dark.

When candles are out all cats are grey.

"Blemishes are unseen by night,"ssss1 says an ancient Latin proverb; and the Greeks held that "When the lamp is removed all women are alike."ssss1 Opinions may differ on that point, but all agree that

"The night

Shows stars and women in a better light."

Hence the Italian warning to choose "Neither jewel, nor woman, nor linen by candlelight;"ssss1 and the French hyperbole, "By candlelight a goat looks a lady."ssss1