LITTLE MISS FRANCE

Hokitika Guardian, 14 May 1920, Page 4

LITTLE MISS FRANCE

AND HER NEW JOB

PARIS, A girl’s clear, pleasant, yet businesslike voice gave the Paris 'telephone number. 1 the reply in a man s deeper note. Then little. Miss h ranee resumed.

“That you, dadf 1 just rang up to say that I shan’t be in to-night until fairly late. Elsie, Antoinette, and I are going to a dancing show. Wo shall dine at our usual Boulant’s and come 'home on the Metro together. So long, dear.” And the speaker, aged nineteen, speaking in those jolly, independent, affectionate, self-reliant tones from the Banque Industriello de la Madeleine (for whose French manager she is a capable private secretary at L3O a month) to a distinguished barrister father, is that astonishing after-the-war production the modern young French girl. Imagine what once she was! How well I recall her in the proper, prim, spindle-legged gilt salons of Paris before the war. Demure, ignorant, guarded by dragons of dull propriety, there she sat, and with downcast eyes blushed when a young man spoke to her, and when there was no -young man she read Prosper Meriinee or heavy lectures from the leading lights of Llie Soi\ bonne. Never did she go out alone. Her 'mind was hung round with white dimity curtains. All that was genuine and strong and emotional in life was kept from her. A matinee at the Comedie Francaise and a visit to the Louvre (till she became tired to death of the chilly maternity of the Venus of Milo) were all she saw of life. And to-day she rings up her father and announces that she is off for a frolic “on her own.” * * * » <- * *

She is infinitely the better for it. All her simpering affectations and useless ignorances and suspicions have vanished. The job came along and in really technical and responsible work girls had to replace men because the men were fighting. And the girls took up the task without a' moment’s question. Everywhere they have been astonishingly successful for the, brain of the French woman is both cool and shrewd. Especially in banking and financial work have French young girls made good, and I have known those who handled abstruse problems of exchange and bills of lading with a certainty and quickness oh decision which compelled admiration. Still, being young, she loves life. .Dancing is her craze and dress is still her delight She reads voraciously, but her taste is clear and healthy, and she tells me that . the modern decadent French novels are hateful to her. She plays tennis at every opportunity. She has no affectations but much knowledge. Her head is clear , yet she has delightful enthusiasms, and she retains the passionate affection for her. family which in one sense is the cardinal strength of France. And her mother? The beautiful, strong, adaptability of motherhood has quietly shed all the old narrow conventions in face of the new needs Little-, Miss France has a delightful mother, all grace and humour, and perfectly dressed. 1 rang her up on the telephone “How.” I ased. “is my little friend Miss France getting on in her new job?”

“Splendidly,” came the reply in a voice that might h'/e been her daughter’s, so' fresh and keen was it “Working hard, playing hard, elean-souled, full of common sense :md fun and energy. That is what wo want our girls to be.”

A better definition of little Miss France could not he phrased