PROBLEMS of a FIANCÉE

Ladies' Mirror, Volume 3, Issue 7, 1 January 1925, Page 52

PROBLEMS of a FIANCÉE

SB? WINIFRED BLATCHFORD

IyTARY is going to be married. She will be married as soon as the • people who are living in the house her sweetheart has bought can be induced to leave it. At present they seem permanently happy there, affording Mary, by their dalliance, ample time to collect furnishings for the home they will not allow her to live in. Luckily, Mary is an optimist. Instead of repining over-much at the delay caused by another's appreciation of her property, she consoles herself and Jack with the fact that, having leisure, they will be able to furnish exactly in the way they both prefer. They will not be tempted to buy incongruous things for the sake of saving time. All their rooms, when they have any, will be just "right"; Jacobean, Queen Anne, Tudor, and so forth. Curtains, cushions, rugs and carpets will be in perfect accord. Ideas in Decoration TjX)R Mary has a flair for decoration, and Mary's house, when she gets it, will be her own, and not the unindividual product of professional outsiders. And Mary's husband, happy man, will not like it less for that romantic reason. I like to go to tea with Mary; there is always something fresh to see, and Mary in original as exhibitor of treasure. It may be an old gate-leg table that we are to admire, or only a poached egg-lifter.

It is not the thing which matters, but Mary's fascinating methods. Mary ,". has a dramatic, decorative sense. The egg-lifter is not . presented stark and unsupported. It is reared against a dainty flour bin, or swims realistically in its little saucepan. And the gate-leg table bears upon its polished surface a reflective pewter tea-pot, or a copper bowl with the stuff that is to make the curtains draped to form a background. So that, at a glance, we see not only a table and a tea-pot, but Mary's dining-room as it will —when she is allowed to dispense tea in it. Picking Up Odd Bits TTAVING plenty of time, then, Mary and the husband she's to have (when the occupiers of her house give their permission) much enjoy the delightful game of picking up odd bits. A cushion, or a bureau, or a mat for the foot of the stairs they hope some day to provide with the rods now sheltering in Mary's mothers' linen cupboard. For Mary's maiden home is fast becoming a household emporium, and a very crowded one. Recently it was enhanced by an old Grandad clock. Which, when Mary first espied it, did not flaunt its ancient charms, but veiled them behind the grime of years. But Mary has an eye, nor is Jack blind to hidden beauties. They bought the battered wreck and devoted weeks to

polishing and scouring and artistic dabbings with a glue brush. There now : stands, in * Mary's mother's second bedroom, a - handsome clock of value, with shining case and burnished face, which, when Mary is allowed to live there, will occupy a special alcove in the hall of Mary's house. Sales Temptations . T7VERY Saturday Jack and Mary are to be seen at sales and antique exhibitions and picture shows. These last are tremendously alluring, and Jack has sometimes to button up his pockets sternly as they stand before a tempting pastel. For Mary has a weakness for delicate landscapes of misty meadows and browsing sheep, and what is Mary's weakness is Jack's temptation. Sometimes they buy, but usually, as homes need more than pictures, they heroically refrain; and when next one takes tea with Mary she will have a new knife-cleaner to display or a dainty water-colour she is paint-

ing for Jack's birthday. One day we heard "good • news. Mary had found a home for the occupiers of Jack's- house. Just the sort of home they had said . they wished to have and could not '. leave until they got. We called hopefully on Mary, our minds full of wedding presents and the hats we should wear at the reception. ■ The Fun of Getting Ready "W/"E found Mary doggedly tread- * ling the sewing machine. "I'm making curtains," she said, "for the spare room— room we meant to leave until we'd settled in. That woman doesn't like, the house I foundsays: it isn't airy! Jack's so cross, and I'm so disappointed. However, I'll have time to do these hangings, and Jack's bought me a new picture: all lovely mists and cattle wading through a stream. We've put it in mothers' dressing-room. When are we to be married ? Ask the occupiers of our house. But it's fun, for all that, getting ready!"