COLOURED HANDKERCHIEFS.

Putaruru Press, Volume II, Issue 56, 20 November 1924, Page 1

COLOURED HANDKERCHIEFS.

The real lady of thirty years ago i met the crises of life with a plain white, linen handkerchief. She dried her unrestrained tears in it; she waved it to departing guest's; she bound it round the wounded knee of her Jitie bo.v before she hurried him to warm soap and a sponge. In every Case it was white and made of linen, and all its decoration was a hemstitched edge or embroidered monogram. It would be. quite twelve inches square, but her husband mocked at its smallness and talk -d of women’s useless fal-lals. She had a little mound of them in her dress-ing-table drawer, smelling faintly of lavender and strongly of ironing-day. Somewhere in the tempestuous years of the war the white mound began to disappear. Perhaps the price 3f linen had something to do with it. but chiefly it seems to have been due to the re:*.! lady's change of outlook. She had been brought up to regard her modest, inconspicuous handkerchief as one of the hall-marks of her refinement, but then she had also ben brought up t<> expect servants to )»••• content with one evening out in the week and a bread-arid-but tel* breakfast. Things changed, and so did her handkerchiefs. Shi' experimented with coloured borders and sprays of pale embroidered flowers. Then eame blue birds, black cats, ami spiders’ webs. The rainbow path was slippery, and at the bottom she found batik, and gave the last of the white linen relics to the nursery for a painting rag. This year’s handkerchiefs would take all the pride out of Joseph’s coat. Their colours are brilliant, nncP even the cheapest of them are charmingly designed. They have not, perhaps, the moral stamina suitable for a crisis, but at least they increase the gaiety of lighter moments.