Gossipy Paragraphs.

Otago Witness, Issue 1651, 14 July 1883, Page 27

Gossipy Paragraphs.

—The old idea entertained by our grandmothers and great-grandmothers that a hride, to be bride-like, must be robed in pure white without a vestage of colour, is fast dying away. White, to be snre, expresses purity, but the addition of a little colour, such as a bouquet of pink or red roses, adds greatly to the effect, as a general thing, and does not, I think, detract from the purity expressed by the white dress and veil. Fashion so blindly lead* many that they fear to turn aside from her beaten pathways. I am glad to think that a reform- in this matter of bridal dress is slowly taking place. Pink, and all its varying shades, seem to be the colours most suitable for a bride. White typifies purity, but a costume entirely of while seems more grave-like than bridal-like. — " When a girl of fourteen," writes a correspondent, " I was one of a family party sojourning at Dieppe, which was then rising into repute, where the English tourist was yet comparatively a curiosity. The solitary jug provided for the ablutions of two young ladies was of so minute a size that we were obliged to keep sending our English maid to refill it at the pump. ' Please miss,' said she, one morning, ' what does " toojoo de lo " (water everlastingly) mean? It's what Mariette says when she meets me.' A few days later we had a ray of light thrown upon the Gallic estimate of our innocent actions. Our landlady stood conversing with friends exactly below our open window, where she was unavoidably — as perhaps she intended — overheard. ' Oh, my dear friends, you cannot imagine what these English are like. They are so dirty— so dirty ! The quantity of water which it takes to get those creaturesclean every morning is something ap. palling.' "

—Polonaises will be much worn in the coming season, and are smartly looped back, arranged in panniers on the hip and at the back, in a long drapery either bouffant or cut like a long-tail coat, with full pleats inserted down the centre. The kilted or pleated waterfall backs are fashionable, and ate usually worn under the postilion tails of a tight-fitting bodice, pointed in front. Some do not reach the waist, but are surmounted by a puff, which is usually continued round the hips, put into the waistband in email flat pleats. A new style is to carry the folded drapery coming from the right hip across the front, fastening it at the left aid* with loop* of ribbon corresponding in oolour. The waistbands fasten to ona stis» with » budkle dr ramrtte, and a fancy pockethandkerohief is often tucked in.