FOR WOMEN ONLY.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1612, 21 January 1903, Page 26

FOR WOMEN ONLY.

There is one little matter connected with housekeeping (says the “Scotsman”) which every young wife must strictly observe if she wishes domestic affairs to run smoothly, and this is the importance of keeping the receipt of euch paid account. Many a home has been rendered uncomfortable, to use only a mild term, by an account, being ' rendered again after having been paid “Oh, yes, I am sure I paid that bill, my dear,” says the young wife, “Well, then, where is the l*eceipt ?” is the very natural inquiry, and as that valuable little document cannot be found, of course there is friction. The amount may be small, or it may be large, but the carelessness is just the same, and some unscrupulous tradesman may press the matter —although I am sure it is seldom done. No matter how trifling the weekly or monthly sum you pay your butcher, grocer, baker, etc., he /will always give you a receipt, and it is unjust to him if you lose it. Another thing. As you must be well aware, prices vary, and by keeping your old accounts you will see what you paid for a certain article a few weeks previously, and at the end of the year, when you add up these receipts you win - soon be able to judge how your year’s income has been expended, for unless some such account is kept it is impossible to trace where all the money has gone. Do not trust, entirely an account book, although this is very useful for entering small items, but get a receipt for every account paid, and keep it religiously. Here are some “don’ts” for girls.--Don’t be snappy to other girls while your are affable to young men; don t stand talking to a young man while he lolls about sitting; don’t accompany him any part of the way, however short, when he leaves; don’t let a young man with whom you are only slightly acquainted incur much out-of-pocket expense for you. Americans have discovered a new way to health and beauty. All you have to do is blow soap bubbles. Nothing “rounds out hollowed cheeks and improves tho contour of the scrawny or too chubby throat” like blowing bubbles. The reason is that you have to take deep breaths to. do it, and America is convinced that deep breathing is the one thing needful for beauty. A Parisienne remarks that a v ide latitude and a great diversity of opinion are granted to every follower of fashion this autumn, but in no. department so much as in evening'dress. We may be picturesque in Empire styles, stately in the robes of Louis XV. or •Louis XYI. days; we may be frilly m flounces, or pensive after the very early Victorian or 1830 period. All- are open to ns, and all are well worn. A new way is suggested for mothers to study tlieir infant children’s ways, and give their experience to the world and to other mothers. It. is by means of the camera. It. is easy enough learning to take snapshots and once you can do it, you not only have a record of som,* of your baby’s happiest moments, but you may profitably note liis build, growth, and general appearance, as time passes. To take him climbing up gtair 3 is a study in itself. In an appeal to women to return to the ways of simplicity in social life, M. Wagner, a Frenchman, says that sim- . plicity means the neglect of the extraneous, the unnecessary, the preposterous complexity which is robbing us of the great things that life offers, and. to allow ourselves to be caught up. in the maelstrom and whirled round until we are giddy. W© try toi do too much, to keep up too large a circle of acquaintances, to entertain beyond our means, ""to indulge in a ceaseless round of amusement and look on it as a sort of necessity when it is nothing of the kind. The first step towards a sweet and sane simplicity is to find out what we cml do without-. At first we may seem eccentric, penurious, odd, and almost disagreeable, yet there is no other way. the great thing is to keep ourselves and all within the home boundary happy and well, and this is done largely by refusing to let the mind and body exhaust themselves, or the purse either.

if a good face is a letter of recommendation, a good heart is a letter of credit. —Lord Lytton. Givo me the liberty to know, to utter, and to argue freely according to conscience, above all liberties.—Milton. Tho epochs of our life are not in the visible facts, hut in a silent thought by the wayside, as we walk, in a a thought which revises our entire manner of life, and says“ Thus hast thou done, hut it were better thus.” —Emerson.

People generally talk most who have least to say. 1 A help is better than a dishful of advice. Labour to keep alive in your breast that little spark of celestial fire—conscience.

Arbitrary power is most easily established on the ruins of liberty abused to licentiousness.

If life is not always poetical, it is at least metrical. Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends on the

tides of the mind. To live in constant efforts after an equal life is to live without either rest or full activity.—-Mrs Maynell. The Duchess of Buccleuch, whose loss of a much-valued bracelet at tho time of tho Coronation caused quite a coir, motion, does not hold the same important post as Mistress of the Robes as she did in tho last reign. The Mistress of tho Rohes to a Queen Regnant is a much more distinguished personago than she to a Queen Consort-. During tho late Queen’s remarkably long reign she had only ten Mistresses of the Robes, two Duchesses of Sutherland, two Duchesses of Buccleuch, the Duchess of Athol], the Duchess of Manchester, the Duchess of Argyll, me Duchess of Bedford, and the Duchess of Roxburghe. The Dowager Duchess of Roxburghe also acted as Mistress of tho Robes while a Liberal Government was in power.