FASHIONABLE PACTS.

Patea Mail, 17 October 1881, Page 4

FASHIONABLE PACTS.

The Auckland Herald’s San Francisco correspondent, writinng under the above heading, says: Ladies, yon should see the store windows, yon really should. The rainbow tints in dress material would turn your heads right round, placing, the back where the front should be—things are so gorgeous this coming fall. I myself am not fashion-mad ; a black dress, sometimes silk, sometimes camel’s hair, but still black, ornamented with heaps of jet. lace and passmenterie ; as the fabric requires a bonnet black to match, with blots of color at the throat, and in the ckapean a crimson rose, a bunch of heliotrope, a wreath of faded leaves ; plain linen collar or crape niche, black gloves, and handkerchief, bordered in color to match the flower of the day, is the changeless form of my habit; and I well remember when Auckland women copied my dress and borrowed my patterns, so I suppose all this is correct. And yet I really do fancy the exquisite fabrics I see, and am tempted to come ont of my ebony shell. The material I covet is velvet, shaded in stripes, either green, violet, or blue. Oh, ain’t they too sweet for anything, these soft, toned-down imitations of summer’s loveliest flowers ! the violet dresses emulate pansies ; the blue, the gentianella ; the scarlet, a softly-shaded daliah, the yellow, ditto; everything is shaded like an antnmn leaf, in every possible color —ribbons, flowers, stockings, all to match. And then there are

nor.KA DOT materials. These are very simple and pretty ; navy blue with white dots, like the old-fashioned bird-eye sporting kerchief; claret, green, all colors, in fact, take the white dot—small and large. Hose are always made to match the dress, also in dotted pattern. Thank Heaven, our gloves are for the present free of spots to emulate mildew, but for everything else the polka dot takes the lead.

A woman, says Buckle, reaches her prime between 35 and 40, for, though her beauty has not lost the charm of youth, it has acquired that of expression.

If a girl has pretty teeth she laughs often, if she’s got a pretty foot she’ll wear a short dress, and if she’s got a neat hand she’s fond of a game of whist ; and if the reverse, she dislikes these small affairs.

It is a curious fact that nature always makes the eyebrow in proportionate length to the rest of the fe: tin es. Thicken an eyebrow if you like but never lengthen it. It always gives a look as if there was a cast in thejcyc.