A BIT OF LILAC PRINT.

Evening Post, Volume LXXIV, Issue 78, 28 September 1907, Page 15

A BIT OF LILAC PRINT.

, In the Women's Page (writes "M.L."' in the Sydney Morning Herald), I saw the letter written by one towards another goal on a mission station in China. It was that part where she writes of, a bit of lilac print which held my attention. A bit of new, strong smelling, reminiscence bearing print. Gone from my hand was the printed sheet. It had dematerialised. Gone, too, was the agglomeration of hurrying humanity, the cry of a 1 tired earth voiced in the noises of the street, and the sweat of civilisation crystallised into soot, grime, and sweeping dust. My hands held that length of new print, my nostrils inhalpd i(s odour, and in the inpouring of memories half sad, half glad, wholly sweet, the weight of years fell away like a mantle. It was a white, thick, oily-smelling calico which first claimed memory's awakening, and on it were bouquets of small impossible- blue roses. It was fashioned fearfully and wonderfully with kiltings, pipings, and pleatings, a masterpiece putting the creations of Worth in the shade, and its dimensions just served to cover two battered and active service knees, and a green bow marked each delta jvhere piping flowed away from kilting, and ' Kilting merged into ruching. The Queen of Sheba was an unconsidered trifle alongside a small smug-faced girl, whose large freckles grew and prospered under a 'fervid northern sun, while rows of prim curls underwent a. "drying" process. The raison d'etre? A picnic in the ancient pad-dle-wheen grain tug which floated with dignified unpicturesqueness down the stream. A haircord stripe of pink. A drowsy old wooden church, where lizards sunned themselves in the cracks, and Hardy limping up the aisle in protesting boots. Hardy was master of ceremonies in thoso days, and put out the dogs, awoke the sleepers, and garnered the silver offerings jn a. plate, whoso disc of plush deadened the noise of the indropped coin, so vhat the contented hum of the bees exploring the honey flowers outside could be heard without effort. Then the benediction, and a string of buggies threading between where gum saplings pushed their heads high among their seniors. Tlmi home, and out among the trees with flying hair and arms held wide to embrace the Present, and feet racing among a tangle of bees and clover and fallen petals of orange blossom. A search among the branches for the overripe golden balls, hanging side by side with clusters of perfumed blooms, and smairgreen fruit — three generations on one bough. Then away to where dog roses formed a canopy over the blossoming quince, to gaze at the playhouse the satin birds had erected there, smooth-brushed earth 'floor with an upright barricudo of twigs, furnished with scrnpH of coloured glass and china, and a bead or two. Haircords, flowered and sprigged prints, pompadour chintz, and on to stripod cambiic when the freckles began to fade and the flying hair was replaced with a. decorous plnit — and out of each in turn my inquisitive eyes from the shelter of thr bank, had gazed along life's river* mid 1 longed to launch my barque and steer for the opon eea. Oli, length of fowered calico, with your ha un tine, memories 1