INNER LIFE OF A PARISIAN LADY.

Samoa Times and South Sea Gazette, Volume 3, Issue 139, 5 June 1880, Page 3

INNER LIFE OF A PARISIAN LADY.

An hour before you get up your maid will light your fire, and then screeh it with a silver framework lined with rose •silk, which will temper the heat and give to the whole room a sort of rosy morning light, that warms while it illuminates. Then she will bring you on a silver plate wanner your cup of chocolate, hot and foaming, which you will drink from tho warmer itself, munching the whilo your rusks served on a little gold toast rack, kept hot in its turn by a little livo charcoaU, sprinkled with vanilla to perfume the air. After you have taken your chocolate you will snooze again fur a couple of hours. Then you will put on a deshabille of pink satin lined with swansdown, enveloping the whole body fr.m head to foot. The waistband and the fastening of the neck of this garment must be in velvet, so as to be warm to the touch. You may now pass into tho bath-room, the atmosphere of which will bo kept at an agreeable temperature by little gusts of roscscented vapour pumped through an aperture in the wall. The :soxt part of our subject is a delicate one; but honi soit mal y pense. It is now lime to draw on tho stockings lined with warm (lossy silk, long and perfumed, wild <j-'.r!rred with Russian sables clasped witheat's eye stones set in diamonds. The boots are to be lined with swansdown, arid trimmed with Russian sables as well. ()l»r precious product of high cultivation is no\v in hei dressing-room. This is to ho made comfortable by means of an imIncnse foot - wanner, some two metres square, which is to form a kind of second flooring all about the dressing-table. The Hilrtftls may lie coloured to represent " the ardent rays of the sun, - ' and the padding to keep out the draught is to bo trimmed with natural (lowers. This will mako the place look and feel like a summer bower iu the depth of winter. The maid may now " fumigate tho nape of the neck " with a little burnt ben/.iou to make it supple—an exquisite characteristic- provision, for without a supple neck how could a French person possibly get through the duties of politeness for the ■day ? We must not forget the hands. These may bo kept warm by holding them in two vessels of enamel tilled with wnrio water, and shaped like apples—rather in bad taste in this direction, as tending to remind our Parisieno of the frivolity of taste by which her sex first came to grief. The promised advantage «f this arrangement is that it gives the hands that attractive rosiness which warmth alone can impart. For the middle of the day the Parisieno simply continues all these precautions by avoiding, as though it were laden with the breath of pestilence, every touch of cold air. The rusks that form her morning meal might he hiked in her drawingroom, and tho carriage in which she takes her drive is hermetically closed. She may realize winter by seeing the Mreet-sweepei's blowing on their fingers through the windows. It is bedtime, and wo aro once more in the bauds of our guide. Ho, however, stands discreetly in the background until his interesting patroness has assumed the velement •ordinaire. He then comes forward to 1o recommend a second garment—a sort of ulster of white plush, trimmed with •ostrich feathers at" the neck and wrists—•which is to be worn as an overall. Tho nightcap of white satin should be trimmed ■with feathers of the same bird, and for additional warmth a little turtle-dove may be fastened under tho left oar. The very hands are to have their nightcap — gloves of pink kid, lined with a plush, and fastened bv elastics (in piuk chinurre), so as not to check the circulation. The bed is to be heated by the fumes of burnt linio-flowcvs aud violets. These agrceablo and calming emanations advantageously the old-fashioned warraing-pan. Enfin, y6u Will drink, just hefose going to lied,"a light creuie de Sabaillon, nice aud hot, made with two fresh eggs and a small gluss of Madeira. By carefully following these directions, one may hopo not to suffer too much in the winter time. L» Parisicnnc. •