A Smart Business Woman.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 870, 2 November 1888, Page 4

A Smart Business Woman.

Mrs Frank Leslie enjoys the reputation of being the smartest business woman in America. When she took hold of her husband’s property the paper was in a state of bankruptcy. She pacified the creditors, raised the mortgages, paid every debt, and to-day has an income from it of two thousand dollars a week. Mrs Leslie is an uncommonly handsome woman, possibly 60, but she hasn't a grey hair and passes for 32. Her eyes are mixrvallous, jet black, brilliant, and several sizes larger than the beautiful orbs of Marie Jansen. She has fine teeth, regular chestnut'brown hair, a superb figure, and pretty hands and feet. Her flesh has bothered her somewhat of late years, to conceal which she wears blaok almost entirely. In the office—and she is at her desk every day that she is well, and she is never sick—she wears black surah silk that fits her figure to perfection. Sometimes the basque is V-Bhaped at the neck, for her throat is a poem, and she is never without a tiny silk apron trimed with a flonnee of blaok or ohocolate lace. S he wears the tight est shoes she can get her little foot into—sometimes hoots, but generally half shoes with silk stockings, clocked or embroidered with colour. Her rings are something like the hairß of her head -numberless. They cover eight fingers to the knuckles diamonds, pearls, opals, emeralds, cat’s-eyes, turquoises, and sap. phires in solitaire and cluster. With the genuine taste of an artiste she admires beauty, and has representations of her own all round her office. There are several pictures on her desk shelf, a life-sized bust in

marble opposite, and prominently hung is a bas-relief in bronze set in a. velvet frame. Otherwise the office is a busy, bustling ploce, where letters pile up in feet and papers roll in billows. You can't get to her, though, unless you send in your card or certify in some other way the nature of your business. Mrs Leslie lives, in the Victoria, where she has a suite of four beautiful rooms, filled with bric-a brae, books, pictures, colour and art furniture. Here she has her ‘Thursdays,’ whore one meets the wit, fashion, and wealth of Bohemia. One of the charms of the salon is a French oabinet filled wi th fans collected from all parts Of civilisation. There are fans that were given to her while in Venezuela, Paraguay, Ecuador, Brazil, and Peru ; Watteau fans, Russian fans, and Italian fans, in leather, lace, feathers, satin, ivory, enamel, and wood, carved, painted, jewelled, etched, and embroidored—a collection said to be very valuable. Then Blie has caskets full of jewels, loose and mounted, which h«r guests never tire of examining. A Southerner by birth she has never ceased to be attractive, and her suitors are legion, She has disposed of three husbands, but denies any notion of again changing her name. All her visitors are big men, and at the opera, play, or charity entertainment nothing below six feet-is permitted to carry her oloak or obey orders... She is a woman’s woman, and does a great deal of good assisting young girls to assist themselves. She launches artists, musicians, singers, poets, and clerks, but will not permit any infringement on her ground. Some time she gave Ella Wheeler, Wilcox the right hand of fellowship, but when Ella heard that Mrs Leslie was getting 100 dollars apiece for her articles about bad, chivalrous, bold, powerful, proBurning, polite men, she set about a similar series, and came near breaking the Leslie pool. Now they are strangers. Mrs Leslie is quick, very gracious, generous, vivacious, level-headed, positive, andpossessed of oapital executive ability. She worksfor thepleasure it gives her, the money it brings, and the inflaence she can command. She keeps a couple of maids, a coachman, and rides about in a splendid brougham. When she leaves her office in Newspaper Row she takes the uptown elevated line, and at the end of her journey steps from the station into her brougham. She eats, sleeps, exercises, and works to live. Her dinner parties are famous, but the French dishes, high wines, and rich pates are ordered for the guests, not the hostess. She believes in the gospel of cpM water and fresh air, to which indulgences she owes her splendid health and vitality, but scoffs at dres3 reform, and will permit none of the alleged nonsense to enter hej paper. Her corsets are just as tight as she can get them, so are her dresses and gloves and boots, and she plays art against nature, delicately and skilfully touching up the tread of time and putting tbo bloom of youth where it will do the most good.—Chicago Times.