AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

New Zealand Graphic, Volume XXIII, Issue XII, 16 September 1899, Page 505

AS SEEN THROUGH WOMAN’S EYES.

. THE BOUQUET AGAIN. A DAINTY AND BECOMING ODDTIME FASHION REVIVED. The subject of the pretty sketch shown here was seeu at Kauelagh during a polo match. She wore a dainty dress of lemon-tinted muslin, powdered with pale blue and pink olossoms, a nchu collar of needle- run lace, and nestling beneath it a huge bunch of field blossoms, roses, forget-me-nots and cornflowers. The wearing of nosegays is one ot the prettiest of the season's revivals. It looks as if it must become universal, so fascinating is it. The essence ot the new bouquet is that it is closely set with flowers reminding one, but only remotely and thus pleasantly, of the old-world tightly-packed nosegays that country folk still construct. By building them with some precision their shape is preserved, and this is something when blossoms as fragile as field flowers are used. Field flowers "go" better with sylvan looking muslins and the new rustic hats than anyother kind, unless it be the ever triumphant garden rose. The hat worn by the pictured girl was as delicately dainty as her gown, veritably the ideal owe for mossy lawns and shaded glades. Semitransparent rice-straw composed it, the colour the faintest lemon, and it was just lightly trimmed with very pale rose pink tulle beneath the brim and above it, and a touch of pure white to mingle with it. The strings were very broad and deliciously white and cool looking. It is curious that only white strings contrive to look cool. The tinted ones suggest the heat of tulle, and tulle is certainly a heating fabric.

THE NEWEST UOIFFURE. THE SIDE PARTING AND STRAIGHT TRESSES. A novelty in hairdressing is the practice that is growing of parting the hair on one side. The tresses are in most cases beautifully onduleed, and little tendrils of it are allowed to soften the forehead very prettily. But it is more truly French, however. not to curl nor even to ondulee the hair, but to bring it in a sort of curtain over the forehead, allowing it to fall on either side of the parting loosely and daintily. The illustration below develops the notion so that it needs no further explanation. It must be conceded for this fashion that it makes a piquant face exceedingly attractive, but it should he tried very critically before a looking-glass ere’ it is adopted. A candid friend’s opinion may even be taken. The reason of this is that though in some eases it is so irresistibly, becoming there are others in whieh it completely mars a pretty personality. Few women have ever tried to find out how becomingly their locks can be arranged with never a wave nor a ringlet. If they comb their tresses straight back and twist them up into tight little bumps they can be pretty sure they will look like frights. The sketch shows one signally successful way of arranging straight hair. The reason why straight hair is NOT BECOMING TO WOMEN of irregular features is because the ears and the bare neck behind them are left too plainly exposed, or for the reason that the hair is brushed back too severely, and long lank locks are left to fly in the gentle breezes. Both of these troubles are easily

remedied if the long hair be parted off across the top of the head from one ear to another, and the front portion tied about four inches from the head, and left to fall back loosely. The back portion can lie twisted up into a coil, while what is left over from the loosely arranged front part can be fluffed up into a few soft puffs or two. Then if you want a few soft curls just round the face, all well and good. A simple liquid for absorbing the moisture in the hair and keeping it in curl is made by soaking 30 grains of gum tragacanth in three ounces of water for two days, and then after straining it carefully through muslin, adding half an ounce of alcohol in whieh are a few drops of oil of roses.

Any other perfume cane be used instead of the rose, and if a thicker preparation is desired more tragacanth can be added.

This can be put on the hair before curling it with an iron, or before rolling it in soft paper. A natural wave is made by twisting one’s short locks up into flat ringlets and pinning them with an invisible hairpin. In the morning these ringlets can be combed out and the head just under the curls sprinkled with powdered prepared chalk, which will absorb some of the perspiration that collects so quickly on the forehead. Powder is indeed most valuable as a preparation both for cleansing the head and the hair and for making the hair keep in curl. ® ® ® ON WOMAN. (By Herself.) Some women are specially prone to the interchange of what are known as "feline amenities.” This is the saying of unpleasant things in a disarmingly sweet voice, generally prefaced by "dear” or “darling." Yon couldn't imagine a man descending to this, but women have been known to enrry it to a perfect art. The apparently harmless remark has a sting in the tail of it—the finer the better. "That was a good article of yours. 1 was quite surprised; it was so unexpected." What a lovely sealskin! My butcher's wife 'has just got a beauty.” “What a comfort it must b« to you that people don’t stare at you

so.” etc., etc., are examples of the kind of thing. Of course, there are exceptions, but women's great fault seems to Im- that they don’t always "play fair.” They are often badly treated. Itecause the,, are so grasping. Ttien she will tak>. man's proffered seat in an omnibus on a rainy day. without so muefi .is "thank you." Women, like men. have "little ways" peculiar to themselves. They are noble in their way. Like the good Kadijah. Mahomet's wife, they will cling to a man the more w J hen no one else believes in him. Only the bases* of women would, like Mr Kipling's

heroine, desert a man when he became blind. A recent article in some paper has described the curious antics of woman when she goes to put a letter in the pillar-box. She will, it is said, go two or three times round the box to make sure she has put it safely in. I blushed, and laid down the paper- feeling- convicted of having done likewise!

-Men, as a elass, hold curiously narrow views about woman. If a general census of their opinions were taken it would be found that on one subject they all agree, viz.., that a woman is physically unable to pass by a bonnet shop. Also, as to general rule, a niau invariably imagines all ot'her women to be, in temperament and character, just like his own wife. Thus, if he happen to have a silly wife, he thinks all women are silly; if she be capable, his ideas of the sex rise in proportion.

But. after all. why continue a never-to-be-decided discussion? The burning question of superiority that so disturbed my childhood must ever be unsolved. Mrs I’oyser’s remark seems best to meet the difficulty: "I'm not denyin* the women an- foolish. God Almighty made 'em to match the men." ® ® ®

TO DARKEN GREY HAIR. Lockyer’s Sulphur Hair Restorer, quickest, safest, best; restores the natural colour. Lockyer’s, the real English Hair Restorer. Large Bottles, Is fid, every when*.—(Advt.)

HOSE OF GORGEOUS HUE. Oh, me! Oh, my! The stocking of milady! Such dazzling, dashing colours, such stripes and spots and plaids. Surely Solomon in all his glory wasn’t in it with girl's stockings this year, and Joseph's coat of many colours wasn't a patch on the splendour of the belle's dainty ankles. Black stockings are passed by, and the more brilliant and festive one’s hosiery the more in fashion one is. The variety of the designs is simply bewildering, and one need not have two pairs alike. The large tartan plaid stockings are the most popular, and they are in all the colours of the rainbow. Next in favour are the spotted stockings in colours of great

SOMETHING ABOUT SHOES. A COMPLETE NOVELTY TO MAKE THE FEET LOOK PRETTY. White shoes having gone out of fashion, it came as an inspiration to a smart bootmaker to introduce shoes of tooled leather. By tooling you must understand a design of some artistic kind done in gold on bronze or any other delicately coloured leather. • In one instance, lately carried out for a woman of fashion, tiny bunches of roses were stamped on white leather, and then coloured to make them look exactly like the real blossom. This should open up a very fine

brilliancy, and the striped hose are equally favoured. Some have hair lines and others have broad bands; some have open-work stripes alternating with bands of colour, and some stockings have the upper part of plain colour and the lower part spotted, striped, or checked, or vice versa. Clocks are again seen, not the slender line of other days running up the side, but an elaborately worked pattern, which shows off smartly in some contrasting colour. No one, not even the most conservatively dressed woman, seems to have the least objection to these new and brilliantly coloured stockings; they have been accepted by all without the least protest, and the note of gay colour showing above the low shoes of summer is particularly fetching.

prospect for lady workers. who hitherto have had to confine their artistic productions to book-backs. For I think it is an idea that ought to "catch on,” seeing that, though it is an expensive one. it is extremely beautiful. and a great deal might be done in it also on the satchels which women carry about with them when they have no pockets and do not care to use the mesh bags, dangling at the end of a long gold chain, which are so son* a temptation to the wayside t hief.

Bound to be comfortable and yet to cling, shoes intended for dances are still made of the most pliable satin. They are also invariably lovely.

Beautiful evening gowns demand that the details of the toilette should Im* correspondingly beautiful. There are many patterns of evening shoes. The high shoe is for those who feel uncomfortable in low ones, and there are many who do. It is cut out in srallopH or medallions on either side, thereby revealing the stockings.

In another, worn with coloured hosiery to match the dress, a glittering embroidery of jet outlines all the open-work strappings, which radiate from a narrow central strap also wrought with jet. The prevailing fashion for Tom Thumb ribbon has resulted in the production of a design where this dainty garniture is stitched on to the Suede or satin in the form of tiny flowers, falling, perhaps, from miniature baskets. Everything is done to make the foot look small and slender; everything that is found to be compatible with ease. ® ® ® ON THE MANAGEMENT OF MAN. It is an understood thing, of course, that the creature known as a Mere Man never allows his august and piercing eye to wander over such columns of this journal as are intended entirely for “Feminine Folk.” He is naturally content to leave us to those small things that amuse small minds, and to let ns gossip to our heart's content about our clothes, and our servants, and our babies. I am assuming, therefore, that the lords of creation will skip these columns as a matter of course, just as the children skip the dry descriptions in the story books, and T propose to give to some of those young wives, who are included among my readers, n little advice as to the management of Man, based on personal experience. T may say at once that I do know something of men and their trieks and their manners, that T am willing to admit that there are enormous difficulties in the way of managing even the silliest man successfully, and that, as a general principle, it is far better to lead than to drive them.

It is the newly - married couples whom T have chiefly in my mind at the moment, the ardent Edwins and the affectionate Angelinas., who, a few months ago. could not support existence out of each other’s sight, and who felt that Fate was very cruel when they could not sit and hold each other's hands for the greater part of the day. But now the glamour of the honeymoon has vanished entirely, and the husband and wife have settled down to the ordinary humdrum existence of the middle-class young eouple, with two maids, and a neat suburban villa, probably double-fronted. It is only in the nature of things that Angelina will be a little disillusionised when she finds that her idol has feet of very ordinary clay. She ought to be prepared for that from the very first, but of course she isn’t, and she is naturally a little disappointed when she finds that Edwin sulks when his dinner is badly cooked, that he loses his temper when his boots, are not blacked to his own satisfaction; and worst of all. that when she asks him if her hat is straight, or if her skirt is longer on one side than the other, he answers: “Oh! yes my dear, your hat it quite all right, and so is your skirt.” without even giving one look in her direction.

Now this kind of thing is very trying for Angelina, and no man can possibly understand how a newlv-married girl misses the candid but valuable criticism which her sisters, and even her brothers, have consistently bestowed upon her clothes. It is very disconcerting for a young bride to venture out. with a view to paying an important call, quite in ignorance as to how her skirt or her hat may look, but if Angelina wishes to have a peaceful married life she will take no notice of all these little signs of indifference on Edwin's part. Men have always been spoilt, and encouraged to be selfish, though very often quite unknowingly, first by their mothers, their sisters, and their sweethearts, and then by their wives. They need to be treated almost as one would treat a spoilt child, and it is only after years of careful training and correction that they can be brought to understand the necessity for repentance and improvement.

But it seems to me that 1 am giving a list of the failings and weaknesses of the Mere Man, rather than suggesting how to alter and improve the creature. and 1 must hasten now to give some practical hints as to the way in which he should be managed. In the

first place, 1 must endorse the advice given by that plain-apoken individual who, when asked by a young wife as to the best way in which to please her husband, answered in three words. “Feed the brute.” And so say I. Feed the brute by all means, and take great care to see that the brute’s food is properly prepared and cooked for him. Don't content yourself, either, with following slavishly a few cookery book recipes, but make up your mind to take a course of thoroughly good, practical cookery lessons. It will be as well, too. perhaps, to try the recipes first upon the servants before giving your husband the benefit of your freshlyaequired knowledge. Vary your menus as much as possible, and keep in stock a few things, such as preserved apricots (in bottles, rather than in tins, if you can get them), one or two tinned tongues, some good sweet biscuits—in tins, of course—and anything else that occurs to you as likely to be of use, should your husband bring home a friend unexpectedly to dinner. Always make a point of having at least one vase filled with fresh flowers for the centre of the dinner-table, and take care every day, and not only when “company” is present, that the glass is shining, the silver bright, and the table linen fresh and uncrumpled.

Your own dress, too, should receive more attention, if possible, than it did in those delightful days when Edwin came a-wooing. If the wearing of anything like evening dress is out of question on your modest means, make some little change In your gown when your husband comes home tired and likes to see you looking at your best. It is true economy, too, to have one or two dresses going at once, and not to wear the same unfortunate gown from morning till night. In the summer time, a pretty' muslin blouse, trimmed inexpensively with lace, might do duty in the evening with any respectable skirt, even though the said skirt be no longer in its first youth. Later in the year a blouse in glace silk, and in the winter a pretty velveteen might answer the same purpose. Remember that man is easily impressed by outward appearances, and it is a great thing to please his eye at the some time that you satisfy his palate.