Vanity Fair

Wanganui Chronicle, Volume 72, Issue 290, 6 December 1929, Page 2

Vanity Fair

"Chronicle” Office, December 6, 1929. "What on earth," queried the girl friend, “are you going to Write about to-morrow?" "I’m not quite sure,” Margot replied thoughtfully, "but I think that the subject will be boils. Our dustman has a perfect beauty. I believe I read in thetjgaper not long ago that Mussolini, or else Boris of Bulgaria, kept a collection which was the envy of all Europe. A beautiful example of the democracy of nature. t i "The weather,” said the girl friend simply, “is 100 hot for tosh of that sort. Why not write about the sunset we saw the other night?” 1 And Margot doesn't see why she shouldn’t. It happened like this. She and the girl friend Were up atop of Durie HUI and the weather, having behaved most sinfully all day, decided to worm its way back into popular favour by one last blaze of glory. So it arranged a sunset, with very careful attention to details. There were little tangerine clouds to be mirrored in the still steel-grey of the river, and there Were great burnished castles and battlements of gold, such cities as the knights of the middle ages went adventuring after, only as far away as the other side of the town. The lights came on, very softly, and their slim golden columns were mixed up with the tangerine shadows in the river, until you’d have believed that drowned Lyonesse was only a little way below that shining, surface. And then the stars began to come out into the clear apple-green orchards of twilight, very shyly, a few at a time, like children who are not too sure that their elders have left the coast clear. It’s rather fun with stars, you know, to count the first few, and then shut your eyes for half an hour. Then you look up, and there are legions of them, all grave and golden-helmeted, and even if you were by descent and upbringing a patent adding machine, you couldn’t count the splendours of one small corner of the sky. , • .. , . ~ And the world is best, just at this grey pausing time when the colours haven t quite faded from the flowers and there’s a cleanness of rain in the air, and the little lawns and gardens breathe out perfumes quietly ’ like good children who have been sent early to bed, and who are having delightful dreams. There s such a strange landscape stretching away where the tangerine clouds were a few moments before. It s very dark and at first you can’t see anything. But if you stare at it, there are blue fields and little welcoming houses, and streets which may have a prosaic name by daytime, but just now, they might lead you anywhere. Only a very small step into the fourth-dimensional fairyland at this hour. MARGOT.

PERSONAL AND SOCIAL. Mrs Grey, of the Terrace, Wellington, is visiting friends in Wanganui. Mrs E. Whiteman has returned to K Mre & Arthur Wheeler, of Leedstown, paid a brief visit to Wanganui this Gwilt Stone has returned to Kaktahi. • Miss F. Ashton, of Otago, has been visiting friends in Rangitikei. Mrs Tennent Wells and Miss Sylvia Wells have returned from Wellington, accompanied by Mrs F. Millward. Miss V. Ross has arrived from Wellington to take over charge of the Wanganui Tourist Bureau for five months. Mrs Mason Strachan, of Gisborne, is visiting Wanganui. Mrs Westley has returned to NewPlymouth after a short stay in Marton. Mrs Brady, of Oamam, spent a few days in Wanganui this week and has gone on to Rotorua and Tongariro. Mrs W. Strachan, who has been visiting Auckland, has returned to Okoia. AQrs Druse, of Helensville, has been visiting her sister, Mrs C. Blake, in Wanganui.

DOWN PETTICOAT LANE. 100 Per C«nt. Optimists. A striking example of America’s faith in th e capabilities of her heroes to “get there,” was shown me in the calendar department of a Wanganui bookseller’s a few days ago. Long before Byrd was in sight of the South Pole, an American firm had designed and printed calendars —decorations of the explorer standing, complete with dogs, at his destination, an Aurora Australis glowing in the background. The optimism, though it’s certainly commercial exploitation of Byrd’s shining hour, is non e the less rather praiseworthy, and it must have helped the gallant explorer to feel that, when he started out, his trip was a fore-or-dained success in the eyes of his countrymen. ‘ ‘ Sunburn ’ ’ Stockings.

Several of the girl visitors on the American ship Malolo made history in Melbourne when they appeared at the English Speaking Union ball wearing evening dress, Dut with bare legs. As a matter of fact, it was so littl e obvious that it was detected only by a few of th e Melbourne guests. Apparently it i 8 quite a frequent thing for stockings to be discarded in California at ceremonial occasions as well as at sports and picnics, but California is looked upon as being less conventional than her sister States. Nor is the fashion popular w\th most of the women passengers on the Malolo.

Learning the Tango. The tango isn’t half so hard to learn as experts would have us believe, according to a Wanganui resident who has just returned from the land of sloe-black, eyes and castanets. Its time is quite different from that of the jazz to which we are accustomed, but once one masters the rhythm, the graceful steps seem to come naturally, and there one is, with the dance which has brought many a young movie actor fame and fortune, safely tucked away in one’s repertoire. ’Phone, Please. On board the Malolo, recently in Auckland, ther c are three telephone girls, of whom Miss Dorothy O’Keefe is chief. They control 500 telephone lines on board the liner. Ther e is always one on duty, day and night, and they work in shifts of four hours on, eight hours off. It is their duty to see that no call is kept waiting one minute. A New Recruit. Still another recruit to New Zealand’s little band of women horticulturists comes in the shape of Miss J. Hogg, who has just returned home by the Makura, having spent four years in the study of landscape gardening. Miss Hogg, who was once apprenticed to the Dunedin Botanical Gardens, thinks that there’s a great future ahead of the small garden, and, if she can 1 make something of this dream come true, she’ll be performing a most valuable service, for so often one hears the wail, ‘‘l can’t make anything grow but milk-thistles and marigolds,” from owners of tiny garden plots. The small garden has been sadly neglected by New Zealand gardening experts, but perhaps if a few enthusiastic spirits take it in hand, we’ll be able to be proud of quarter-acre sections yet.