AMERICAN GIRLS ABROAD.

Nelson Evening Mail, Volume XII, Issue 277, 22 November 1877, Page 4

AMERICAN GIRLS ABROAD.

[From London Ttuth.}

I take it that there are as many pretty girls in England as in the United States. Then why ia ifc that the eye is more attracted in watering places by American than by English girls? The reason is that American girls know how to dress, and English •■ girls are devoid of all notion of this moat praiseworthy accomplishment. I am not speaking now of irreelaimably dowdy girls, but of girls who really do make an effort to fulfil their duty towards the male sex. These girls aeana, however, unable to understand that what suits one person does not necessarily suit everybody. If a tali thin English girl sees a short dampy girl in a dresa that sets off her charms to advantage, she appears aoon afterward in an exact copy of this dress, and then indulges in the pleasing delusion that she looks well in it. Thus it is that dumpy girls go about in clothes befitting tali girls, and tall girls in those befitting dumpy girls : that, long faces have hats made for fat faces, and fat faces hats made for long faces; that blondes array themselves in colors that look well on brunettes, and brunettes in colors that look well on blondes. Now American girls rarely fall into these errors. The other day at Homburg I was standing near the spring, talking to an American girl who looked like a picture, so harmoniously did all the colors in which she was arrayed match, and so perfectly did she seem to make one with her clothes, like a bird in its feathers. "How do you manage ifc ?" I asked. « The root of ifc all is," she answered, "that we each study our own style. We never wear a dress aa it comes from the dress* maker, but we drape it ourselves. We know what colors match, and we take care not to produce discords. Nature has not made us all perfect. If we have too long a neck we reduce it by tying a piece of lace round it. If we are short necked we don'i * dress it high/ If we have long faces we don't wear a tail peaked hat, bat if we have round faces we do. Most of us have small feat, but if our feet are large we don't utterly neglect our shoes and stockings. Then we never forget smaller details. We know where to put ft bow, and we don't have too many of them. If our foreheads are high, we doa't draw our hair back, and if they are low we don't draw our hair over oar eyebrows. We don't wear outlandish jewellery because we happen to have it. Indeed, we seldom wear any jewellery at all because it looks vulgar. An English girl goes into a shop, tries on a hat which takes her fancy, and then puts it straight over her eyebrows just as the stupid hat-maker has told her to wear it. Do I look as well. like this ? " she added, as she pulled her hat forward. I had to confess that it was not an improvement. <s The way you wear your hat," she continued, warming with the subject, •' is juat as important as the hat itself. Costly feathers don't always make fine birds, and all feathers don't suit all birds alike. I knew an English family in Paris, The amount that those girls spent on their drees was something frightful, and they were never fit to be seen. Sometimes they would all come out dreßsed alike, as if the family had bought a web of cloth. When they were not dressed alike, their things seemed to get mixed up, and the effect was moat disastrous. They had no idea of neatness, I never saw one of them without something wrong about her." " Wera they pretty?" I asked. " Yes, very pretty." she replied ; " and this pretiiness is what spoils English girls ; they are so proud of their looks that they think it does Dot signify what they wear, while we Americans are naturally modest."