GOSSIP.

Bush Advocate, Volume XXII, Issue 66, 19 March 1910, Page 6

GOSSIP.

Queen Alexandra has lately had lier immense collection of jewellery completely overhauled, and some poition of it is to be reset in accordance witn the newest fashions. The Queen has always been very devoted to jewellery of every description, and her collection is to-day one of the finest in Europe. It is kept in large, bur-glar-proof safes at Buckingham Palace, and the Hon. Charlotte Knollys is the only one who carries the key to this. A few years ago a caieful inventory was taken of every jewel the Queen possessed, and the restilt was surprising. Since that time, however, the Queen has made laigc presents of jewellery to several members of her family. The Queen is constantly having her jewels reset, as new ideas occur to her, wliile the Duchess of Argyll has drawn seveial charming designs for her lately. Her Majesty's jewellery is all carefully put away in sets. Tsach set rests upon a properly designed tray of white velvet, and the whole of the Queen s jewels are carefully locked up each night before she retires to rest. It is a proud boast of the Queen's that out., of her extremely large collection, she has never lost a single article in lier life.

In. view of th econtinued improvement in the condition of her brother, Prince Leopold, Queen Eugenie, of Spain, is, says the JSews of the World, making the most of her brief visit to London. Her Majesty has for the most part kept strictly within the Battenberg family circle, though the communication with Spanish officialdom in London, which etiquette demands of her, has not been oveilooked. During the week the young Queen visited several West End theatres, including Drury Lane ana Daly's. We are in a position to announce that with the early spring the Spanish Royal Family will amount to 48 years. Princess Ena of Battenberg became Queen of Spain on the memorable May 31, four years ago, when still a girl of 18, while King Alfonso has reached the age of twenty-three. The young Royal couple have at present three children, the Prince of Asturias, born May, 1907, Prince Jaime, thirteen months younger than the heir to the throne, and Princess Beatrice, born in May of 1909. Thus, in the normal course of events, four children will have blessed the youthful union after less than four years of marriage. I called to say good-bye to a friend who is starting for Switzerland, writes Rosaline, in Black and White. She looked so cosy and so easy nsetling among her own cush ions, such a comedy British matron in the shadow of her familiar Dii penates, that 1 expressed wonder at her forsaking such becoming suri-ound-ings. "Yes, it's a nuisance," she said, "to take one's chance of comfort in a foreign hotel at this time of year, but 1 do it for the sake of the girls. They'd feel so dreadfully out of things if we stayed at home." Presently her daughters appeared, two bonny, buxom young women, who had been exercising their muscles at hockey. "Isn't it a bore, we'e off tomorrow? Just in the midst of the hockey and hunting," one of them confided to me, over the muffins. "But daddy is so knocked up by the election, he must have a change." When the father arrived, he, too, had a word for my private ear. "I'm not at all keen on travelling in winter, but the wife, you know, she likes to be where the other people are." Now, whose fault is it that they are going tomorrow ? Mr J. P. Morgan, by his latest deal, acquires control, according to the American papers, of capital reckoned according to Conservative estimates, at £350,000,000, and, according to others, at over £500,000,000. But, then, what does a million or so matter here ? What seems to be pretty certain is that Mr Morgan has under his control a greater portion of the world's capital than any other individual. An admirer once wrote of Mr Morgan that he exerts his power in the open, that he wins his victories by main strength, that he cvould not be underhanded, and that he has neither time nor inclination to be diplomatic. "You put him down as a rough man, rough in the leonine sense; yet this many-sided genius has great culture, great courtesy, and great kindness of he ait. \on note that in and out of business lie is always m a hurry, always impetuous, eager not to be delayed. You have only to look at him to know that he is a big man in every way. He is six feet in height, and lie weighs 15 stone."

In the latest X/ife of that imielicliscussed f fricncl of Dr. Johnson's, Mrs Tlirale, the lady records in her journal that a certain hostess in Derbyshire is "the most conversible female that I have seen since I left home." The adjective, says Ella Hepwortli Dixon in the Sketch, is delicious, but significant, for women who could talk charmingly and brilliantly wore not often found in remot ceuoritry-seats in the eighteenth century, the art of conversation being chiefly cultivated in blue-stocking sets in Loudon. Mrs Thraie, to be sure, was an excellent judge, for she was probably one of the most birlliant and witty talkers (to judge from her letters and diaries) which this somewhat stolid island has ever produced. The "conversible" female is, however, happily a good deal in evidence today, for the eloquence and vivacity which our mothers poured into letters which they "crossed" are to-da3' reserved for the dinner-table and the smoking-room. As long as it was considered highly indecorous for a woman to talk at a dinner-party (and j>robably Lady Holland was the only

exception to tlie inarticulate feminine battalions) how could any one expect the level of woman's conversation to be a high one? .Now, often enough, except in suburban circles, the amusing and informing talk emanates from the spindle side, much to the astonishment of elderly gentlemen from remote shires who find themselves in the world where one amuses oneself. There is no doubt that the "conversible female" has come to stay, and tiiat the much-needed enlivening of those English dinner-par-ties —so dreaded by General Gordon—will be the result of the encouragement of the species.