WOMEN’S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, 17 January 1931, Page 5 (Supplement)

WOMEN’S WORLD

DYEING DAINTY ARTICLES. HOME-MADE PREPARATIONS. (By- F.F.) Frequent laundering often makes it necessary to renew the tint of stmall articles, which, nevertheless, need not be sent to a professional dyer. Lace collars and cuffs soon lose their becoming ecru tint, but a dip into a bowl of diluted coffee or weak tea,, sufficiently deep to cover them entirely, will prove wonderfully refreshing. Leave them quite flat until they are ironed; otherwise there will -be dark streaks along the folds. A wash ot water in which orange peel has been boiled for a quarter of an hour will bring back the original warm tone to chamois gloves. Similarly, a mild brew of saffron will renew the primrose tint of lingerie. The delicate shell pink of “undies” may be regained by adding a few drops of red ink to the rinsing water. This is quite harmless in such a weak ablution, and will not in the least damage the texture oi the silk. Green ink, too, can be used as a dye; I havd seen shabby white feathers dyed to a fine green by immersion in a weak solution. Old typewriter ribbons boiled in water for half an hour will produce a satisfactory mauve dye for muslins, With every fresh laundering, however, a fresh dyeing is advisable, since, like the majority of home-made dyes, its effect cannot claim to be permanent. These dyes are extremely convenient when articles are no longer sufficiently youthful to justify professional dyeing costs. They will often tide oyer the time till new ones are forthcoming.

THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS.

(By a Bachelor.)

The girl of my dreams must be pretty, but she need not necessarily be beautiful. Beal beauty is often rather over-powering, and always difficult to live up to. She must have an understanding nature, and must.be able to see at least part p- my point of She must be neither too gay nor two solemn; neither too clever nor too dull. I don’t want a girl who can run a mile in five minutes, or row stroke in a women’s crew. And I don t want one who can sing or play like a professional. I want a girl who canjium a popular dance number the morning after we have been to a show, and who, if the gramophone goes wrong, can sit down at the piano and make our little party a success. I want a girl who is distinctive; not one who looks like millions of other girls. 1 should like her also to be able to cook a meal 1 can enjoy. The girl of my dreams must be . medium in height and fairly elim —not like two 'boards joined together, nor like a bolster tied up in the middle. 1 want hei; to be able to wear new clothes so that they look as though die has had them a month. She must be able to recognise a good picture from a sensational one, and to listen appreciatively when someone ■plays a classical number. Nevertheless, I don’t want her to be highbrow; that is the last thing in the world I want. I want a girl who can make herselt at home with anyone; who can force a ■smile out of a taxi man with a fourpenny tip; a girl whom bus conductors treat politely and guards . help into railway carriages. Tlu girl of my dreams may powder, but I should, hate per to paint. . I don’t want anyone wonderful; just someone I can love and reepect-

FASHIONS AND SOCIAL NEWS.

THE FORSAKEN HOUSE.

AN AMERICAN CAMEO.

(By Elizabeth Kyle.)

A long moss-grown avenue lined with trees draped .in Spanish moss that drops from their arms like folds oi velvet . . . At the other end, directly in line with the avenue entrance, a group of Corinthian pillars holds up the porch. The plaster has peeled off these pillars, and it is difficult to decide whether they were once white, or warm yellow, or peach-shaded pink—the colour brides chose for their house decoration just about the time of the Civil War. All the green shutters of the house are closed, except one or two round at the back, where live old black Jacob and his wife Eliza; they keep the place aired, and occasionally show it off to favoured visitors. The door-bell, jerked downward, peals hollowly somewheie far in the rear, and Jaedb’s felt slippers slip-slop over the bare polished floor as he comes forward to answer it. This is the hall, its great Georgian mantelpiece still showing the rusty iron fireback that was made in England some time during the eighteenth century wh§n the house was built. The dark panelled walls are hung with portraits of the family, and each one is pointed out and expatiated upon, by old Jacob. There is the founder of the house, who lived like the English gentleman he was in spite of his residence abroad. Here is his wife, a little yellower in skin and slower in speech than were the London relatives with whom she kept up correspondence; but she was sure of her place in Southern

society, and as fashionably attired as could be expected, considering the milliners’ sketches of what was being worn at' St. James’ could only reach her several months late.

Here, scattered about the parlour, are the Chelsea figures she so much admired and had shipped to her from time to tirrte—painted shepherdesses; bright plupiaged birds whose colours, undimmed by years, still glow against the painted walls of “pearl” and “lavender” she mentions in her diary of housekeeping arrangements. In that same diary, by the way, are noted down the exact times at which the sun would lie along the fine new Turkey carpet in the hall, fading its glory, unless a maid were sent each day to close the doors and windows still more firmly. We mount the carved oak staircase to inspect the bedrooms. The bedhangings, wonderfully embroidered, look ready to crumble at a touch. From the windows we can see a courtyard; and there are the old slave-huts, deserted, falling to pieces, where Jacob once played as a boy, when the house was still occupied and full of life and singing. “Times is changed,’’ sighs old Jacob, openly regretful of the days when, even if life could not be called one’s own, it was at least worth living.