RIVALRY IN HIGH LIFE.

Kumara Times, Issue 1342, 19 January 1881, Page 2

RIVALRY IN HIGH LIFE.

Everyone knows that there is great rivalry between Mrs Langtry and iirs Wheeler—greater between them than any other of the reigning beauties and that whatever one can do so as, to "score" off the other, is done by e*tfi. Mrs Lantry is known to possess very beautiful arms, while Mrs Wheeler's are thin and scraggy. On the other hand, the reverse extremities of Mrs Wheeler are regarded by those who have seen them as models of shape and

■tl ~„.v,-, ~„.~ „ , , , „„., form, while M*s Langtry, though possessing fairly some feet when " bieu chausee)" can only boast of upward Continuations of a Very pipe-stein order. "Well, the season before last Mrs Langtry set 4he fashion of the sleeveless ball dress, and, of course, Mrs Wheeler, joauch to her detriment, had to adopt the style. But she set to work to think how she could retaliate, and this is how she did it. At the first ball she appeared at last session, she wore a dress with a very short skirt. The 3?rince admired it, and, as a matter of coarse, it became the fashion. But what Was Mrs Langtry to do ? She tried it once, but the effect, as may be imagined, was disastrous. Then she Bet to work to cudgel her brains, and—happy thought!—at the next ball, instead of adding an inch or two to her draperies, as she had first thought of doings she had actually taken a reef in in her already short skirt. But underneath appeared a pair of a certain article of ladies' "lingerie" which, on the present occasion, shall be otherwise untneationable, of knickerbocker cut, and teaching to her ancles, where they were decreased in fullness to a narrow band, and thence fell over her instep in a short flounce of point lace. The effect Was immense. The Prince was more than delighted with it, aud uot only did Mrs Wheeler find herself completely checkmatedat her own game, but, as the wearing of the additional garment a la Langtry at once been me the thing, she of course was obliged to adopt it, and thus conoeal what it had been her motive to so subtly disclose. It had been by such daring, and, at the same time, shrewd acts as this that Mrs Langtry has become the " lionne " she is> and by the continuous exercise of her audacious wits holds her owu as she does. She is always equal to the Occasion, and the present instance is a fair example of what she can do, and Hot only to be tolerated but followed.