GOSSIP FOR THS LADIES.

Otago Witness, Issue 1461, 15 November 1879, Page 23

GOSSIP FOR THS LADIES.

The King of Italy presented his wife on the feast of St. Margaret (after whom the Queen U named) with a set of pearls, consisting of necklace and earings, the co3t of which waß very great. The necklace had five strings of magnificent pearls, all of the same shape and size. Ib can be imagined that the Queen was delighted, not so much with the pearls as with this proof of the affection and devotion of her husband. It seems that Umberto is a good husband as well as a model king. If this gift seems extravagant, it is the only extravagance with which he can be reproached. His own equipage is plain and all of his private expenses are moderate. Since hie accession to the throne he has paid out of hi 3 own private income the many debts that were left by Victor Emanuel Every Week an Eastern lady has her hair thoroughly washed at the bath. It is first twice well soaped and rubbed. They are very particular about eoap, and use none but that made of olive oil. After tho soap, they apply a paste of A merioan bale and ro3e leaves. This is rubbed into the roots cf the hair, and left to imbibe the greaso of the head ; it i<i then, like the soap, washed off with bowls of hot water, and leaves the locks perfectly clean and silken. From time to tima they dye it. On these occasions an attendant mixes up a handful of henna dust in hot water, and thoroughly smears with it the hair, which is then turned up into a ball, and bound tightly with a napkin. In this state they go through the bath. When the napkin is removed, and the henna paste washed out, the hair, if before black, will have become of a bronze auburn, and if grey, red. The bath occupies from three to four hours, with the smoking, chatting, music, and dancing which accompany it, in an atmosphere which excludes every unpleasant sensation.

At the funeral of the lets Queen of Madagascar, the body was swathed in nearly 500 silk lambas, ia the folds of which 20 gold watchee, 100 gold chains, rings, brooches, bracelets), and obiter jewellery, together with. 500 gold coins wera roiled. That deposit of the remains ni royalty will make a splendid prosp3cfiing for some future miner. In Italy, according to the I'apd custom, all tho Margarets of Iho laud obsorve the

Festival of St Margaret instead of their birthday anniversary. "I wisb," writes a Paris correspondent, "that some of the critics would journey across the water to see how dressing for the stage is done, in artistic Paris, . the home par excellence of the highest form of decorative art. They would find Croizette at the Theatre Francaise, playing in La Sphinz in a seal-skin drsss that cost * £600. And what would they say to the gowns of the accomplished Mdlle. Bartet in Montjoye? Her first dress in particular would throw them into convulsions. It is composed of a real and very fine Indian shawl, (ono of those that have no plain centre, but are all border— the most expensive style, by the way) cut into a polonaise, and worn over a large skirt of peacock-green satin. The sleeves and the front of the polonaiso are trimmed with peacock-green velvet, exactly matching the skirt in shade. Her second dreßs is of white watered silk, ' with sleeve and paniers of white foulard trimmed with Valeucienne'e lace. A scarf drapery of white foulard is drawn around the lower part of the skirt, and is knotted in front in a very graceful fashion. These dresses were both made by Worth." Gambling ruined the peace of mind and injured the character of the celebrated Duchess of Gainsborough, yet the more she Buffered the more she strove to stifle her regrets by doubling her excitement. Eogers says : A faro-table was kept by Martindale at which the duchess and other high fashionables ÜBed to play. Sheridan said the Duchesa and Martindalo had agreed that whatever they won from each other should be sometimes doubled, sometimes treble the sum it was called, and assured me that ho had handed the Duchess into her carriage when she was literally sobbing at her losses, having lost £1500, when it was supposed to be only £500." The DucheßS had not only the excuse of pernicious examples on every side, but of a deplorable hereditary tendency. Her father, who, at the time of his marriage was so rich that he could " spend £30,000 a year without feeling it," died at forty-nine so embarrassed by the cost of contested elections and gambling debts that the Duohess constantly crippled her own resources in order to assist her mother. Her very virtues combined with her faults to plunge her into almost inextricable difficulties.

Queen Margaret of Italy is 28 years old, rather tall than otherwise, with a graceful figure, a fair peach-blossom complexion, and an aquiline nose that, if she were not the Queen, might beconsideredadefeofc, She wears a blaok Spanish lace veil on her head in the Lombard style, and is at present in mourning for the late. Duchess of Parma, Maria of Savoy. This mode of wearing the veil instead of a bonnet is very becoming to her, as it is to most woman. The ladies of Milan generally wear the lace veil over the head, and they are all pretty, part of their beauty being due to the graceful folds of black lace in the place of a stiff, high-perched bonnet.

TBIFLES.

The chief secret in comfort lies in not Buffering trifles to vex one, and in prudently cultivating and undergrowth of small pleasures, since very few great .ones are let on long leaees.

Madame X, entors the chamber of her coloured waiting maid while the Abigail is at her toilet. "Mercy me, what is that?" she says, pointing to a box inscribed " Lampblack for the complexion." "Oh, that's my pearl powder !".

Dr Byles's wit once met with a severe retort. Encountering a lady who, having an offer of marriage from the Doctor, had married a gentleman by the name of Quincy, he said : "So madam, it appears you prefer quincy to biles." '-Yes," she replied. •' for if there had been anything worse than biles God would have afflicted Job with- them."

David Wingate, one of the leading Scotch working-man poets of the time, is about to marry Miss Thompson, a granddaughter of .Robert Burns.