SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXVII, Issue 8363, 25 February 1913, Page 5

SOCIAL AND PERSONAL

Mrs Sydney Hall, of Levin, is the guest of Mrs Cleland in Tinakori road. Mrs and Miss Collins have returned From a visit to Auckland. Miss Sim has returned from a visit to the South Island. Miss M. Kellar, of New Plymouth, is visiting Mrs H. Abraham at Khandallah. Mr and Mrs Henry Hall leave to-day for a month’s trip in the Auckland district. Miss Skinner, pf Karori, is at present on a holiday visit at Mr Kearsley’s, Levin. Miss Baker, of Auckland, who is to bo a bridesmaid to Miss Gwladys Meadowcroft next Thursday, is staying in Wellington. Mr and Mrs G. Lewis, of Christchurch, who have /been staying at the Grand Hotel, left for Napier yesterday. , Staying at the Hotel Windsor are; Mrs E. M. Barry (Feilding), Mrs A. B. Salkeld (Blenheim), and Mrs 0. Meegham (Timaru). Miss Helen Dalrymple, of the Napier Girls’ High School, has been appointed assistant mistress at the Dunedin Girls’ High School, of which she was a former pupil. Mr and Mrs Lilbura, of Feilding, have come to Wellington for Miss Daisy Greville’s wedding to Mr Suckling. They are staying at the Hotel Windsor. Last Tuesday Miss Ethel Grierson was married to Captain Henry Tnckey at the Cape. Miss Grierson stayed for a week previous to her marriage with Mr and Mrs Ronaldson. Staying at the Empire Hotel are: Mr and Mrs Moran and Mr and and Mrs Quinn. Mr and Miss Stewart and Miss Hamilton,. of Melbourne, who have been staying there, left yesterday for Rotorua. At the Grand Hotel are: Mr and the Misses Duncan (Wanganui), Mr and Mrs Tait-Smith (Melbourne), Mr and Mrs A. M. Robertson (America), Mr and Mrs Lamboume (Auckland), Dr and Mrs Veitch (Norsewood), and Mr and Miss Prevost (Adelaide). Mrs Hugh Fraser, the author of another most successful hook, “Further Reminiscences of a Diplomatist’s Wife’’ —the other being “A Diplomatist’s Wife in Japan”—is a sister of Marion Crawford, hence doubtless the vividness with which she relates her experiences, and the literary quality of her writing. Apparently Mrs Fraser's life has fallen among pleasant ways, and she seems always to have been in a position to meet clever and picturesque people, of whom she does not write in the manner common to most compilers of reminiscences. An amusing story of Mrs Fraser’s relates to a foreign Prince who had to receive a deputation .from another Court. He thought to pay them a pretty compliment by wearing one of their decorations; but, curiously enough, he could not find the insignia—ribbon and star, or whatever they may be. So ho borrowed them. The ribbon was found, and the Prince, wearing it, met the deputation. It was an unfortunate step, because the deputation had come for no other reason than to present Him with the rvery decoration that they found him wearing. Mrs Jlilruth, wife of the Northern Territory Administrator, is at present raiding the Melbourne shops, says a Melbourne chatterer. She has had her boys seasiding at Frankston. They are a lusty, outdoor crowd, and their mother declares that, though there is an excellent doctor in Darwin, he has not paid a professional visit to the .house daring their months of residence. “We have never been so well,” says the young matron. She thinks the Territory climate really tones one up, and says she has lost the languid feeling the Victorian summer heat used to induce. Professor Nanson’s prettily fair daughter who companions her and helps teach the children,_has the same glad word for the maligned place. At intervals they ride and motor far afield, bumping •over roughness hidden in the floor of the roadless and grassy wilderness. Mrs Gilruth. has an aboriginal nursegirl, whom she finds most adaptable. This young person has become an expert needlewoman. She is in Melbourne with the family, and is fascinated Gy the shops. Melboumeites turn and stare at the happy brown-faced, girl in the dainty clothes of civilisation, wondering where she came from. And very few of them guess that she came from Australia. • There is, perhaps, no more interesting personality in the gubernatorial service of the Empire than Sir Gerald Strickland, who has been appointed to be Governor of New South Wales when Lord Chelmsford retires next March.

On his father’s side Sir Gerald is descended from one of the oldest families in Westmoreland, the Stricklands of Sizergh Castle. Their pedigree goes back some thirty generations in the male line, and they made their mark in English history in the remote days when the progenitors of some of “our old nobility” had not. emerged from obscurity. A Strickland figured as a hostage when Magna Gharta was granted, and another bore the banner of St. George on tho battlefield of Agincourt. Sir Gerald is, curiously enough, a Maltese noble, his mother having been a member of an ancient family which goes back to tho famous knights. In Malta, Sir Gerald is Count Strickland della Catena, and he was born' in the sunny island. And though Sir Gerald has been extremely popular in Malta, where he is best known as chairman of th© cholera committee, he has also been the besthated man in the island. When the language trouble was at its height Sir Gerald was in no small danger of his life, owing to his plain speaking to a rather ignorant and excitable community. Sir Gerald received his education in Malta, and afterwards graduated at Cambridge, where he was known as a successful speaker and a president of tho union. He is an excellent horseman, and has ridden m the Grand National. Sir Gerald married, in 1890, the Lady Edith Sackville, daughter of the late Earl de le Wait. and he began his gubernatorial career as Governor .of the Leeward Islands and Tasmania, and for three years he has been Governor of West Australia. It was Sir Gerald who introduced English into Malta as the language of education. Says an Australian paper of Oscar Asche’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in Melbourne; Colour enough and to spare is to ho found in the fairy scenes, and the. modem mode of brilliancy of tone replaces the oldfashioned ideas of silver and white. The forest glades are exquisite, and the distance suggested in both scenes are wonderfully realistic. The purple and bluish mists ’and shadows are excellently worked up to charm the eye, and the abundance of real foliage helps largely in realising the wealth of forest growth. Dozens of fairies in purple, blue, yellow, pink, and magenta gauze, with wings to "match, sing and dance, flit among the greenery, up the mossy banks, and on the water of the lily pond. Pixies, gnomes, imps and elves assist Puck in his capers, and Oberon and Titania are. waited upon hand and foot' by all these midgets of the forest with a fascination that makes one long to be with them and live in.so much ease, amidst a charm that costs nothing. In singling out the jirincipal characters of the fairy dell,. Puck the little imp, whose very name is the joy of everyone, is presented in quite a new guise by Miss Florrie Allen, who dressed the part in russet brown, with flashes of red that appear to be some form of electric light attached to the front of the tunic. Injplace if the quaint, little, smooth, eulsh head and protruding eyes and cars’, he is presented with a mass of fiery hair, that stands out all round his impish face, as if each strand had been wired. Ti tania, too (Miss Birtles), is hardly tho crystal fairy queen of yore, but supplies a rather fine bit of colour, dressed in layers of gauze, that begin with pale green, over which comes purple, and then a shade of red, somewhat like crushed raspberry. Each drapery glistens, and all the smallest fairies have their work set out to cany her yards of diaphanous train, coloured to represent a bedewed cobweb. And to keep her artistic company Oberon is wonderfully attired in a tunic of luminous beads, with gold boots, a beaded headdress, little dozens of strands on either side of the face, and a metallic blue spear, the entire costume belonging only to fairyland, and seen in her dream fancies. Novelty of idea also characterises the ass's head worn by Bottom (Mr Asche), and it would be worth finding out the habitat of tho blue ass with tho plush-like hide. In other respects it is a knowing head, for it can blink its ' eyes and move most naturally its mouth, and especially when directing Cobweb, Peas Blossom, and Mustard Seed to find him food ana scratch his ears. All th© evening the eye is following the characters that figure in the various scenes. After the fairies have bad their turn attention is centred on the mortals, and of these Miss Brayton, as Helena, looks her very best, better than in anything we have yet seen her, her perfect arms, her style of features, and her dark hair all suiting themselves to the classic mode of her attire and really exquisite colouring. For her first costume she has made a study of pink. The underdress is in flesh colouring, and the draperies are of rich salmon, stencilled with gold. Material the colour of the bluebell that has purplish tints is worn in tho forest scenes, relieved by draperies of lilac fabric, and in the final act, after the marriage, she robes herself in white swathed with gold and white embossed material, and carries a bunch of romneyas. Miss M. OrtonDring, as Hernia, also adds by her richly-coloured costumes much to the poetic fantasy of the picture. To vie with Miss Brayton’s pink scheme, she wears palest green and gold swathed with deeper green, ftcr hair being held firmly by a broad gold filet. In the forest she adopts a costume in two shades of vieux rose, and has a beautifully draped white robe for the last act.