LADIES' GOSSIP.

Otago Witness, Issue 2045, 4 May 1893, Page 46

LADIES' GOSSIP.

— Princess Waldemar of Denmark — who never forgets her French nationality — is having prepared for her own delectation a charming memento of the country she loves above all others. It is an album, choicely bound and illustrated by all tbe most famous artists in Paris. Detaille and Madeleine Lemaire, and painters of their calibre, are engaged upon it pages. Massenet has written a delightful little piece of music for it ; and, in fact, when complete, it will be as delicious a little souvenir of Parisian art and la belle patrie as the heart of a French princess could desire and the purse of a wealthy one couli well purchase. — Ladies in Denmark are continuously adding to their modes of earning a livelihood. One or two ladies are doing very well as consulting dairy chemists. Several ladies have either founded important schools or taken over the management after their husbands' death. Among these schools are one or two which rank with the best high schools, and which have the right of tending students to the university. A Danish lady has recently, being duly qualified, commenced business as a dentist. — The Queen allows most members of the Royal Family to have wine from the Royal cellars at cost price, but the old wine, which was purchased by Prince Albert, free from duty, before his death, is never allowed to go anywhere except on her Majesty's own tables. There are wines still in the Qaeen's cellars which were purchased in George Ill's time, and in one corner there is some orusty old port which was bottled for Qoeen Anne. — The " Ladies' League" notwithstanding a Sheffield correspondent informs me — qrinoline steel is being ordered, A Sheffield

a charming selection from his grand repertory, the Princess Beatrice and Prince Henry of Battenberg thought proper to give this celebrated fiddler a handsome set of sleeve links in diamonds and rubies, which dazzle like stars when he is drawing forth sweet music from the catgut. — Some time ago the Marquise dv Plessis Belliere bequeathed the greater part of her large fortune to the Pope. The will was disputed by the deceased lady's heirs-at-law, and the affair coming before the courts, they have obtained a verdict in their favour. The judge's decision was based on the politioal situation of the Pope, who is a sovereign without either territory or temporal power recognised by international law. In France testators are by no means free to dispose of their money according to their own fancy, irrespective of the rights of natural heirs, which are important. — Every bride knows her power ; every wife comes to know her weakness. A good proportion of the heartbreak of early married life is due to the ferment of this knowledge. The poor child whose lover gave up his cigars and his club with such angelic meekness, finds that her husband can smoke like a chimney and leave her alone in order to spend the evenings with his men friends. She imagines that he cares less for her than he did, which is a mistake in most cases ; seven out of ten men love their wives better than their sweethearts. It is simply that her presence is not so absorbing as it was when love was new. Tbe chances are, nevertheless, that the wife has become a dozen times more necessary to the man than ever the sweetheart could have been. He would feel her death far more keenly, and though his conduct may not be as deferential as it was in tbe time of courtship, he really values her more highly. — When her Majesty rose at the royal table to propose the health of Princess Margaret and her husband she said in a firm, clear voice : " I wish to propose the health of my dear grandchildren, Prince and Princess Frederick Charles of Hesse, with every wish for their happiness." " Hear 1 here I " shouted the Marquis of Lome and Prince Henry of Battenburg and Prince Ernest of Hohenlohe; then Lady piddnlpb, Lady Oowell,

Madame Morrini, Mdlle de Perrut, and Miss Ponsonby clinked one another's glasses before they drank, and the glass held by the Queen was touched by the glasses held up by Princess Louise and Princess Beatrice.

— The freak of fashion in London is now levelled at th 6 voice. Formerly one of the characteristics of a lady was her voice. It was soft, low, 'well modulated. Poets and novelists bestowed this charm upon their >eroines. But now the fashionable voice of the day is high, shrill, and strident ; an exaggerated imitation of American intonation would best describe it. These voices come, not from the outer ring of the circle, but from the charmed inner ring, the highest in rank being foremost in taking the lead in this respect. Trae, American voices are naturally on these lines— formerly regarded as a defect— but quaint Americanisms and American wit, allied to the tones in which they are uttered, give them a distinct originality ; and without the one the other falls worse than flat on the ear, and the general complaint among men now is that the girls of the day have " such very ugly voices." — Queen Margherita of Italy's wonderful collection of laces, dating back 1000 years 8.C., and gathered from Egyptian and Etruscan tombs, will be sent to the Chicago Exhibition — the first time that they have ever left Italy. Accompanying this exhibit of laces there will be a collection of the work of Italian women up to date. — Perhaps the most gorgeous brooch that will be f een in London society this year is a peacock that stands facing the east, with the tail describing a setting sun at its back. It does not lack a single colour of its plumage ; the breast is a plane of minute emeralds and sapphires ; the tail blazes in diamonds, rubies, and emeralds ; and even the crest of its head is strewn with gems. — The Princess Marie Louise, of Parma, who is just married to Prince Ferdinand, of Bulgaria, is the Duke of Parma's eldest daughter by his Neapolitan wife, and was born in 1870 in Rome. She is an exceediDgly lively girl, with opinions of her own upon almost every subject. She has a sweet voice, great talent for painting, and rides well. She has been educated by an English lady, Miss Mary Fraser, who is now the Princess's lady-in-waiting. Duke Robert of Parma, the father of Princess Marie, is a simple, good-hearted country gentleman of refined manners, and has 14 children— nine by his first wife and five by his second. The Castle of Schwarzau, where he now mostly resides, he purchased four years ago on account of its proximity to Frohsdorf, where his brother, Count Bardi, lives, and to Reichenau, the residence of the Archduchess Maria Theresa. The young Princess has the two characteristics of the Bourbons — the large blue eyes and aquiline nose, and her likeness to the Duchess de Berry, the mother of the Oomte de Chambord, is very striking. , — In some parts of the Continent a small piece of vanilla is put into the teapot together with the tea. But there is yet a daintier way of taking your vanilla flavour with your tea, and this "raffine " manner is English and not Continental. When the tea or coffee service is being made, vanilla flavouring is added to the china when it is in the potter's hands, and. thus it is baked into every article of the set. Whenever afterward the tea-things get hot as they are being used they -exhale a faint aroma of vanilla, which, to the fastidious, may be preferable to the actual infusion into beverages of a piece of the square stem of the aromatic vanilla plant. — One thing noticeable in the decoration of the Queen's drawing room at Balmoral is the great number of statuettes of the Qaeen's children. A very pretty group represents the Princess Beatrice, Prince Leopold, and their dog, Wardie. A statuette represents the Queen on horseback, wearing the long riding skirt which was the fashion in her day ; but her gown is low-necked and short-sleeved, and she wears round her neck the collar of the Order of the Garter. The curtains, chairs, and carpets of the room are all of the Victorian tartan. — In Germany every servantgirl is obliged to own a little blank book for stamps. Once a week the mistress pastes in the book a twopenny-halfpenny stamp, which is purchased from the Government. When tbe girl gets old, or should she fall ill, the stamps are redeemed by Government, so that the girl has a small sickness or old-age fund. This custom was ordered by the Emperor about two years ago. — Here is a Russian legend. One day a Russian moujik having found a horee3hoe, and believing firmly in its virtues, took it to his wife, and said to her gravely, " Wife, I give this to you as it will bring us good luck." His wife laughed at him, and his mother-in-law coming in at the same moment took this occasion to turn him into ridicule. The good moujik said not a word out of respect for her-; this exasperated the old dame, who, overwhelming him with abuse, went in a rage out of the house, banging the door (on whioh the horseshoe was hanging) violently after her. The said shoe being very badly fixed fell on the head of the woman and killed her with the blow, The moujik, turning round to his companion, said, " You see, my dear wife, that I was right." Moral: Husbands, be advised and likewise hang a horseshoe on your doors for good luck. — Jackets are really longeT than ever. They will no doubt end by besoming paletots, and reaching to the bottom of the frock. Then there will come a sudden reaction, and they will grow short. — Castle Rising, the Norfolk residence of the Duke and Duchess of Fife, is simply a shooting box adapted to the needs of Us present owners. Originally the Duke, in common with Sir Henry James, rented the shooting. The place is within easy distance of Sandringham, and on the estate there is the ruin ot a famous castle. r fhe reason is not generally known why it is strictly contrary to etiquette to have finger glasses at any table where a member of our royal family is dining. A friend of the writer asked the Duke of Cambridge for the explanation of this. " The origin of the custom is this," replied the Commander- in T Chief. " When our family first came from Hanover, all the party still loyal to the Stuarts looked upon the exiled King Jamea II in France as their rightful sovereign ; and when they drank the King's health, would hold their glasses over the water as they said 'The King '—meaning, of course, that they drank to • the King over the water. 1 Tq

firm, which does rolling for the trade, hss orders from at least half a dozen houses for crinoline steel. Paris, New York, and London establishments are buying freely. One Manchester house has laid in a stock sufficient for making 10,000 crinolines. A Birmingham lady, writing to the manager of one of the leading rolling mills in Sheffield, states that the last dress she had from London contained three steel rows. Large fortunes were at one time made in Sheffield out of crinoline steel, which was a most profitable department of the steel industry.

— Young women who are about to be married and who dread the duplicating oE their wedding gifts may find a valuable suggestion in the example of a recent bride. She drew up, it is said, a type-written list of the things she would prefer and forwarded it to those who were likely to give. As the presents came in she scored them off and sent revised lists around to those who had not given. At first glance the scheme is not attractive, but, divested of its apparent sordidness, it would mean a saving of any amount of time and worry to all kind friends of the family. — As fur disappears, ornamental braiding will take its place on our skirts. This will be carried both up the seams and round the base. I

— Her Majesty is (writes a Home paper) very fond of fiddlers, and she has "refined the bow " a good many times for her royal sailor son, Duke Alfred of Edinburgh. In fact, the Queen was so much struck with the fiddlerist who played at Osborne the other day, that he was commanded to stay all night, and the next day her Majesty gave him a beautiful letterweight, bearing her own royal and imperial autograph in gold, and as one of the links came out of the wristband of his shirt while he was playing

preclude the possibility of any such covert disloyalty, in our actual presence at all events, it became the custom to have no water on the table when any of the reigning royal family were present. And so finger glasses were banished, and the old custom survives long after the cessation of the cause of it,."

— A prince of the blood born in England is to marry the Princess Victoria or the Princess Maud of Wales— so a Court correspondent informs us— as it is her Majesty's wish that this should be so. Both girls are very dear to the Princess of Wales. The Princess Victoria of Wales wjll soon be 25 years old, and Princess Maud will be 24 next November, and it is believed that either a young Christian or a young Teck will be accepted later on as suitor to one of the Wales Princesses.

— The Princess of Wales's collection of lace is one of the most perfect in Europe. She has been engaged in its formation for many years, and i-eldom allows a twelvemonth to pass without adding to her tre isures. It has been stated that the King of the Belgians' wedding gift to the Princess* way some Brussels lace to the value of £10,000. — Red-haired blondes are rather rare. The Indians worship red-haired people, regarding them in the light of children of the sup. There have been poets who have gone into raptures over red hair, and called it " sun-kissed." According to a legend of old, the devil, who tempted the pious hermit in the desert, appeared unto him in the form of a woman " clothed in a veil of darkest red hair," which, as we are informed, " turned and twisted around her bosom like snakes of copper." The moral of this story— for all stories must have a moral — is that red-haired beauty is the most dangerously seductive of any, for his Satanic' Majesty would not assume such a hirsute covering were it not that he considered it the most captivating web of all others in which to inveigle the soul of man. In this case, however, be isgregiously failed to accomplish his dark design, for the hermit refused to be smitten by the fascination of the tempting siren -who had crossed his path. Curiously enough, though red hair is and has been symbolic of intense passion and cruelty, it is also emblematic of the most innocent purity. It is a colour in which opposing extremes seem to meet and blend. — The Archduchess Margaret of Austria, who has just become Duchess Albrecht of Wurtemberg, did not take her splendid bridal dress with silver embroidered marguerites to her new home, but presented it to the Church of St Mary of Cortfnual Relief, where her brothers and sisters prayed for ber recovery during her recent illness. It is to be made into a set of Easter garments for the priests. The Duchess only keeps her bridal veil and wreath of myitle. M. and Madame de. Lesseps lived for some time in the Rue St. Florentine—rendered famous for having been the street where Talleyrand lived and died— and they have now occupied for several years a handsome house on the beautiful Avenue Montaigne, near the Seine. One of the most interesting pieces of furniture in the grand salon is a glass case containing the hundreds of decorations that have been given to M. de Lesseps. In all the rooms Oriental stuffs and rare and costly brio-a-brao abound. In the ante- chamber are two enormous elephant tusks and a collection of umbrellas of all nations. Throughout the house comfort and elegance reign without ostentation of luxury. The manners of the master and mistress of the house are simple-, and affable. An insignificant employe or an obscure journalist is received as graciously as -an ambassador. Their receptions have always been very splendid and animated. • As'for hospitality, it is practised here in the old-fashioned style. They have generally at the house some relative not so favoured by fortune as themselves, and these visitors stay six months or a year. '/ * — Last century (and to a still greater degree the century before) scholars, merchanta, and noblemen were readily to be recognised by the respective fashions of their dresses, every whit as distinctive, each in its way, as the uniforms of the military or the canonicals of the clergy. Men and women were required by law to show what they were by what they wore. People of the lower middle classes, such as tradesfolk, farmer?, and skilled artificers, possessed, as a rule, three suits of clothes ; one for winter wear, another for summer, and the third for mourning. It was the custom to put on each of the *' seasonable " suits on a particular day of the year. Even the upper middle-classes dressed very quietly; the most expensive article of wear being their wigs. Another distinctive feature in last century dressing was that at the age of 45 even ladies of rank and station assumed dresses of a distinctively matronly character, sober in hue, and rigorously avoided everything youthful in cut, tournure, or fashion. — In Turin the countrymen liviDg near the river Po plant poplars as soon ac a girl is born. They consider this' a dowry tor the girls, for the poplars when 16 years old are worth about 14s. This, would buy the girl a gown, shoes, and a veil on her wedding day, and so the " heiress of the poplprs " may be a young person whose father has planted a garden ot trees when she was a baby. — The musical education of the daughters of the Princess of Wales is in the hand* of Miss Olga Neruda, whose elder sister is the famous violinist, Lady Halle". Miss Neruda teaches them the pianoforte, but neither of the young Princes«es has been able to learn the violin. This lack of musical' talent has caused some disappointment to the Princess of Wales, who takes much pride in the doctorabip of music conferred upon her Royal Highness at Dublin some years ago. Some of the nnost famous musicians in the world 'have played wi»h the Royal pupils. One of them, a brilliant violinist, was once masked his opinion of their performance. "•You play like— like princesses," he rerplied. — The presents to the Princess Margaret «of Russia on the'occasion of her wedding were .not publicly exhibited, but there was a semiprivate view of them some days afterwards, very well worth seeing they were. Perhaps the most costly jewellery was the gift ■of the Empress to her daughter ; it took quite «a small trunk to hold it all, and the principal object was a magnificent set of emeralds. A tiara set with these stones in jpear-shaped forms was conspicuous by its

brilliancy, and there were earrings, brooch, bracelets, and necklace to match. In the Empress's present were at least six bracelets of different kinds. The bridegroom's gift was somewhat singular, though certainly costly enough to satisfy anyone. It consisted of a case with five heavy gold rings, set with large stones, each one different in colour. From the Landgraf of Hessen and his mother jointly, the bride received a beautiful arrangement of opals arid diamonds for the front of a dress, and earrings of the same stonep. The Kaiser gave a riviere of enormous diamonds of great value, and, of course, Queen Victoria sent many gifts to her pretty granddaughter.

Teagowns are more worn than ever, and are the prettiest and most comfortable garment ever introduced for home evening wear.

— Miss Helen S. Faithf all, of the Institute for the Employment of Women (London), proposes to build in an easily accessible suburb, where train, tram, and omnibus are both frequent and cheap, a house which would accommodate a considerable number of ladies— governesses, artistp, clerks, and others. Each would have one room, at a rental not exceeding half a crown a week. Tbere would be a common sitting and reception room. The hall, staircases, and offices would be cleaned, but each lady would be responsible for her own room, or she could pay a charwoman to do it for her. The home would be unsectarian, there would be no limit as to age, and no rules whatever. Once the home was started, it would, Miss Faithf all believes, be self-supporting, and its institution would be an untold boon to a large c'ass of women.

— The little Queen of Holland has an English governess, who recently set her to draw a map of Europe as a punishment for some misbehaviour on her part. The little Queen had her revenge on her English instructress by making the British Isles appear on the map only about half the size of the Netherlands.