FIVE O’CLOCK TEA CHAT.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume V, Issue 45, 8 November 1890, Page 19

FIVE O’CLOCK TEA CHAT.

>LLY : -1 am hot. breaxiiiess, and indignant ! Do. Gladys. give me a strong cup of tea. ' Gladys : ‘I can give you a cap oi tea in five minutes, and whilst waiting for it do infocm us what has happened to excite you eoY Dolly ; ‘ I have just been reading a story in CoraAtZZ called, •• A Bride front the Bush." and I consider it an in justifiable slander on colonial girls. Gladys : ' What is it about ? Dolly : ‘ A son of a Mr Justice Bligh goes out to Australia. and suddenly frightens his family, who are summering on the banks of the Thames. by the announcement that he has married a girl from New South Wales. Vera: ‘ Well, he might hare done worse -' Dolly : ' But he couldn't have done worse according to the author, wlu> very sensibly does not put his name to this libel. He represents her as vulgar to a degree. When she sees the reach near Richmond she claps her hands amt says. *•1 give thi- bast ; it d-es knock spots out of the \ ana ami the Murray, after all.' A little later she horrifies the party gathered round the dinner-table by asking her father-in-law if he often had “ to put on the black eap and sentence poor unfortunate people to le hung * Because that can tbe very nice. Sir James —is it?" Her "twang" is described as dreadful She is up at a very early h-xir, and shows the coachman and stable-boy bow jo erack a stockwhip, slitting the man's shirt in two with one elever stroke. Her language is improbably uniadvlike. She winds up by whipping the hat off the electrified bead of her venerable father-in-law by another deft eraek of her stockwhip.' Stella: ‘lf I were a New South Wales young ladv I should strongly protest against tint sort of girl being taken as a type of squatters'daughters.' Vera : • There is a certain twang in Tasmanian accents, bat then the girls are so pretty,- it nearly makes up for it.' Dolly : ‘ Well, at all events the New Zealand girl speaks well. &at no one denies.' Gladys : • Yes. and has plenty to say for herself too.' Dollv : ‘ Well, when she say's things in a soft, pleasantly modulated voice, no one has any objection to a girl’s ehatter. I think.' Stella : ‘ I heard some ladies talking about the price of provisions the other day, comparing New- Zealand with Fwgban.l I did not hear what they had to say about the wages.' Gladys : ‘ There can be no comparison. People out here have no idea how the very poor at home exist on the merest pittance. I knew one family of twelve : the boys earned a shilling or two—not enough to keep themselves bv any mother was siek, and the father eoald only get 12s a week.' Stella.- ‘ And yesterday a gentleman was telling me of an artist, whom a relation of his in London knew well, who managed to subsist on fourpence a week.' Dolly : ‘ Subsist'. Starve, you mean.' Gladys : • How did he manage f Stella : ‘ He went to the butcher's and bought foarpermywortb of bones. The best bones had a little meat on. which did for one day. Then he sold the nicest bones to a man who made kn'jfe-handles I think it was, and sometimes got sixpence by the transaction. That gave him bread.' Dolly : • And here they must have meat at Least twice a day :' Gladys : ‘ I must read yoa a carious paragraph that I came across in the Gewlfeataa’t Majraniae for 1V55. “At Hexham provisions are of various prices, according to the season of the year. Beef, mutton, lamb, from 2d to 3>d per lb : pork, generally 24d per lb: a goose. 12d at the latter end of harvest, and 2s and 2s fid at Christmas : chickens. 3d generally : a hen, -. and five eggs a penny. I have just received an account that salmon is now selling ar the Cross for three-halfpence a pound, and that they will not be all sold at that price. Day labouring men's sues 12d ; carpenters, etc., Is -Id : the master. Is fid ; tailors that work by the day. fid and their victuals." Dolly : ‘ How funny it sounds, but we must remember that money was not nearly so plentiful as now, and consequent! v worth more. Gladys : ‘ Has it ever occurred to any of you what a nuisance it is to be frequently asked during the day how you are? Now, wouldn’t it be a good idea if somebody should get up a code of signals -bowing how people feel, thus saving much wind in asking " How are you ”' ami kindred question-. There might be a white lapel button for “ Pretty well." a red one for “ So-so." and a Hue one for “I feel like—.” They could easily be made quite as trustworthy as the weather signals, an-i would fill a longfelt want." Stella ; ‘ What next ? Dolly: ‘ I have just remembered that a lady wants me to ask Stella what is the latest idea for decorating that ungainly piece of furniture, an upright iron grand, which must stand with its back to visitors ?' Stella: ‘ I have seen a novelty in the shape of a piano case. This fits over the back and sides of the instrument, ami can be made in any wood, or white enamelled. Cunning little brackets are arranged on the back, and the sides .thereof terminate in shelves tor books and china, or in a quaintly-shaped seat.' Dolly : ‘ Ob, that is ever so much better than a curtain or drapery, and eoald be made to match the enamelling of mantelpiece, tables, and fancy chairs. Many thanks. J« rrrot'rt Igo to tell my friend of your delightful suggestion. ’ Gladys: ‘ Did you know that Miss Edna Lyall, the novelist, who wrote those pretty stories, " Donovan," “We Two." etc.. has been very ill ?’ Vera : •I am sorry to hear that. By your using the past tense I conclude she is better.’ Gladys : • Yes, she is now so far recovered from her long illness as to be able to leave her house at Eastbourne. for inland air at Dartmoor. She is still, however, too prostrate for literary work.’ Dolly : ■ My theory is that everyone is bound now ami then, or only once in a lifetime, perhaps, to have a serious illness. Most people are ill every year : a eold anyhow, if nothing more. I wonder why f Gladys: ’We take too much out of ourselves without allowing nature time to make up for the overpressure : so every now and then she compels us to listen to her at first gently uttered appeals for rest by enforcing idleness in an