AN ENGLISH GIRL IN A FRENCH FAMILY.

Star (Christchurch), Issue 16411, 27 April 1921, Page 9

AN ENGLISH GIRL IN A FRENCH FAMILY.

When an English girl comes to France and goes into a- French iamily to learn French she must be prepared to charge her habits; cf life to a great extent. Nothing is quite the same in a French household as in an English home. Breakfast is a sketchy meal, taken in one’s bedroom—coffee arid bread and butter on a. tray. Luncheon is at- midday, and is a. good substantial, meal, generally of three courses- Tea, is another sketchy meal, eaten gustily: and dinner, at seven or half-past, is o comfortable repast of soup, meat and vegetables, followed by fruit or some kind of sweet. Then there are exercise, fresh air, and baths. Frenchwomen do not tako much exercise, ay \>e look on it. They play tounis, but rarely any other game, and Paris girls who are studying do not alwavs practise even that- sport. Thev walk in town or in the Beds do Boulogne, but long country walks aye not to their taste. They like to rii. m the open air in fine weather, but they do not tare so much for open windows iu the house. Bathrooms are much more general in Paris than they used to he, but they are not used with the uame- regularity as in a.n English house : n nee or twice a week at the most in the ordinary family. Tho French girl works harder than the English girl nt her studies. She iis supposed to bo domesticated, but this is hardly so in the sense we understand domesticity. Slw* is much tidier in her bedroom than the English-girl, and much rnnr© careful and dainty 1 about her clothes. She sews better | and likes it. generally speaking. But ; ebo does not do general housework as well or os much as our girls. Neither does she undertake cooking as w© do. Her mother may know how to cook and she herself may have to learn to do it when she is married in those penurious davs ; but. ns a. young girl at home, the town-bred girl gives most of her time to study and her own personal possessions. ‘ She is taken to her classes at tho lycee, 3he is fetched homo (although this rule is now relaxed in some families and girls go and come alone), she prepares her lessons in her own room, and she potters about among her frocks and frills. She often makes her own lmts and simple frocks and blouse*?. -?h© works hard nt her music or painting, or both. She learns the art of selfi development., mentnlte- and physically, and she is genera 11 v devoted to her nnmediate family. All this somewhat, intensive culture is foreign to the average English girl, whoso education is less thorough and much wider and haphazard, and the point of view of life as a whole on tho French girl’s side is often completely opposed to that of the English girh. Tt should l>e to the advantage of both to try to Foe each other’s.