HER POINT OF VIEW.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume VII, Issue 2, 10 January 1891, Page 7

HER POINT OF VIEW.

On the piazza of a fashionable watering-place hotel there was seated one evening, during the season just passed, three ladies, who were listening to the music of an orchestra when it played, using their tongues when it didn’t and their eyes at all times. Suddenly one of them gave a start of suppressed excitement. ‘ Look,’ she said almost breathlessly, leaning over to her companions, ‘there is that Mrs 8., you know.’ ‘ What,’ exclaimed No. 2, ‘ the divorcee.’ ‘ Yes,’ was the answer, while No. 3 echoed with a sigh of satisfaction, ‘ Now we will have a chance to see what she is like.’ Three pairs of eyes focussed their gaze upon a common object—a young woman, blonde and comely, seated in front and a little to the left of this optic battery. The music began again while the ladies stared intently. When the orchestra stopped the tongues were ready. ‘ She’s not hopelessly pretty,’ began No 1 with a little laugh. ‘ Too pink and white,’ said No 2, who was sallow and black-haired. ‘ They say he is very handsome,’ went on the first speaker, and ‘ Oh, he is, bnt dissipated, awfully so,’ asserted the second. ‘ Don’t you think,’ continued No 1, ‘that she shows her suffering ’ Her eyes have a sort of wistful look of pain to me.’ ‘ Yes, and the lines of her face are sharp,’ replied No 2. • She certainly shows that she is a woman with a history. The most casual observer can see that. ’ So the chorus went on till No. 3 came to the front. ‘ I have been watching the way the corners of her mouth are drawn down,’ she said with the air of one about to make a mark, ‘ and I tell you there are two sides to that story, although all the sympathy seems to be with her. No woman has a mouth like that for nothing,’ and she snapped her lorgnette, shut and thrust it with some decision in her corsage. ‘ Why do yon think so ’’ commented No. 1. ‘ I’ve been fancying that droop rather pathetic.’ ‘ Nonsense !’ said No. 3, ‘ that's not pathos; that’s temper and lots of it. His family say that he could not live with her, and now that I have seen her face 1 believe it.’ At this moment a gentleman approached the person who all unconsciously was the object of such serious scrutiny and comment, and in some haste exclaimed, bowing and offering his aim : ‘ Miss L., your mother is in the parlour just home late from a drive. She has sent me for you.’ Miss L. arose at once, ami with a laughing remark of compliance, walked away with her escort. Among the trio in the back seats the silence could be felt for a moment, then No. 1 recovered herself. ‘ Well,’ she laughed, ‘it wasn’t Mrs B. after all, was it ?’ Nobody answered. In particular the student of character from the curve of the lips maintained a stolid quiet. By way of aftermath it may be added that this is a sketch front real life.