A LADY'S LETTER FROM LONDON. Feminine Facts, Fancies, and Frivolities. [From the Auckland "Star's" London Correspondent. ] London, June 19.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 62, 9 August 1884, Page 5

A LADY'S LETTER FROM LONDON. Feminine Facts, Fancies, and Frivolities. [From the Auckland " Star's " London Correspondent. ] London, June 19.

Dear Mr Editor,— We returned from Ascot on Monday last, after spending a quite too delightful week at, or rather near, Windsor. Tom and my cousins hired a tiny house there for the race meeting, and Mr G drove us over to the course every day on his drag. Do you know, I think there are very few sensations half so enjoyable as sitting behind a team of wellmatched horses "tooled" (yes, that is the word) by a capable whip. We enjoyed the races, of course, but the great treats of the day were the drives to and fro through Windsor Great Park. Tom said Mr Hopkins was going to bring the Maori King and his suite to Ascot on Cup day, but they never turned up. I wish he had, for despite the absence of the Prince and Princess of Wales, the Royal Heath was one blaze of rank and talent, birth and beauty, dressmaking and millinery, all four afternoons. Of course, Blanche and myself wore different costumes every day, but our poor little attempts looked very feeble beside fehe masterpieces of Madame Devy and Worth. On Tuesday the most striking dress I noticed was made of plain lemon 'Ck without any trimmings or flounces whatever, the sole decoration being a jream of silver green embroidered frogs, which leapt one after another from the shoulder of the close-fitting bodice to the waist, and thence in a flowing line across the skirt, the numbers thickening in the middle, and thinning at each end. The parasol was to match with a tortoiseshell handle, and the bonnet of lace. Another lady, who evidently wished to be conspicuous, >yore crimson velvet of a peculiar shade, with plaques of elaborately embroidered mushroom satin, let in to the bodice and the sides of the skirt. Two sisters, in nuns-veiling of mushroom colour and rich moss green velvet, were greatly admired, as also was the much m evidence Miss Fortescue, who occupied a seat on the drag next to ours, and looked trery lovely in a background of pink, jovered with clouds of lace. Amongst the most notable society jeauties on the lawn were Mrs Cornwallis iVest, in a dark blue cloth dress and toque, vith a white bib blouse; Lady Lonsdale, n a lovely French grey, with bonnet and jloves to match ; Lady Clayton, wearing in indescribable blackberry costume, being in amalgamation of grey gauze, emsroidered with blackberry fruit ; and Mrs Vlontagu Sharp, in ecru muslin, richly nrimmed with lace. Tom was in a very bad temper all the time, md so were two ladies in the next coach to >urs, who seemed to be betting both in jloves and money. On Tuesday, when Duke of Richmond was beaten for the big ■ace, one of them literally cried. The gen;lemen had an "awful time " (at least, so -hey described it) all that week. I see in " Truth " that the officers )f the Horse Guards Blue who are quartered at Windsor lost £50,000 between :hem during the four days. Just think of t ! A gentleman with a big nose and Sebrew cast of countenance was pointed >ut to me by a young soldier. He said : 1 That is * Uncle ' Lewi?. On Monday next ye shall be going to him to borrow the therewithal to pay the bookmakers." The Shakespearian Show at the Albert iall has been the principal social sensation if the fortnight. People thronged there to iee the costumes, but I must confess I bought it all a horrible failure. People ook bad enough in fancy dresses at night, tfot one man in twenty knows how to bear lhnself in an Elizabethan ruff and tights. Still in the evening the gas and the glare md the noise and the music and the cham)agne cover a multitude of sins. But these ;hings In the broad daylight — oh, horror ! ■t was too ghastly. The rouge and the ,'iolet-powder, the pencilled eyebrows, and he false hair, all showed with painful jlainness. Two girls alone came through ;he awful ordeal satisfactorily. They were listers with red-gold hair, such as Rossette oved, skins of surpassing whiteness, and lark mystic eyes. They wore peacock*reen frocks of some soft material, cut square, and embroidered here and there vith yellow roses. Wherever they went a ;rain of suitors followed. The prophet of sestheticism, Mr Oscar Fingall O'Flaherty Wilde, is married. The jeremony came off the other day at St. James's, Sussex Place, to which none save those provided with the great man's visiting mrd obtained entrance. The bridesmaids wore rather ugly dresses of terra-cotta coloured Indian silk, over which were looped-up polonaise of pale blue, with a little flower printed on the ground, pompadour fashion. With these they had white straw hats, very large, but not unbecoming in shape, with white feathers. The only remarkable feature in the bride's costume was the veil, which was made of thick lemon gauze, to match the tint of her dress, and arranged round the head almost like a turban. It is lather hot to go lo the Theatre just at present, but when Tom saw that the famous Parisian "star," Madame Judic, was going to play at the Gaiety in " Mamzelle Nitouche," nothing would serve but we must get stalls. "Nitouche" is a young French schoolgirl, who escapes at night from the Convent where she is being educated to an adjacent Theatre. Here she finds the principal actress has fallen ill, bo she performs her part before a delighted audience of soldiers. Subsequently Nitouche disguises herself as an officer, sups at the regimental mess, insults the Colonel, and is arrested and discovered. The piece brims over with fun, but Judic is its life and soul. Her art is incomparable. In the last act she sings an old French ballad, "Babet et Cadet," newly set by Herv<s. Gaiety audiences are usually the reverse of enthusiastic, but as the final notes of <J Babet et Cadet " died away people absolutely rose at her. Even the "mashers" seemed affected. Patti must be blest with the gift of everlasting youth. We went to Coven t Garden on Saturday to witness her "first appearance this season," and oh ! how I enjoyed the evening, As usual, she chose •• La Trinrata " for her r entree. The little woman looked, perhaps, five-and -twenty as she swept on to the great stage, radiant with smiles and a perfect blaze of diamonds. What a welcome the house gave her ! It was not as noisy as many I have heard at the Lyceum, but most impressive. The Diva's vocal powers seem unimpaired. In the florid music of " Violetta " she is still able to demonstrate her superiority over all other light sopranos, and her wonderful facility in executing scale passages, and introduced embellishments in "Ah for se ( lvi,'' was no less remarkable than the exqui site pathos of her ". Addio del pa&sato." Now for just a word or two about books Tom brought home Walter Besant's "Doro thy Forster" from Mudie's last Saturday

It is a wonderful novel ; in fact, a roal tour de force. Mr Besant makes his heroine tell the story of Lord Denventwater and the Northumbrian rising in 1715, and so ably is this done that very few readers who begin the talo will care to lay it down till they come to the last chapter. In some respects " Dorothy Forster " may be likened to the " Chaplain of the Fleet j" but it bears even a greater resemblance to "Lorna Doone." Mr Besant, indeed, has done for the burly Northumbrians what Mr Blackmore did for the West Country-men, viz., stirred up an interest in their remote fastnesses. Mrs Riddell's "Berna Boyle" is an Irish love story of just passable interest. The author's intention seems to have been to show the miseries— mostly petty torments, but still agonising enough when of daily occurrence— that may result through unequal marriages. We are introduced to four couples who have mated unequally, with disastrous consequences. The heroine, Berna, the daughter of a ruined country gentleman wedded to a Avoman beneath him, suffers horribly from her mothers innate coarseness and vulgarity. She rosolves never to make the mistake her father did herself, and so, when Gorman Muir, the son of a peasant proprietor, wooes her, he is uncompromisingly rejected. How Muir perseveres in his suit, and how the proud damsel is persuaded to change her mind, shall not be told here. You will doubtless be able to procure the book in a cheap form before long. Talking of cheap editions reminds me that all the late Anthony Trollope's works with the exception of "An Old Man's Love are now obtainable for two shillings apiece. " Marion Fay " and " Ayalas Angel," were published in this form last week, and " The Land Leaguers" will follow immediately. "Marion Fay" is an average specimen of Trollope's style. "Ayalas Angel" I don't care for. To those who wish to sample Trollope's different methods, I would recommend " Barchester Towers," "John Caldigate," and " The Eustace Diamonds." They are all three clever books in their respective ways. "Dame Durden," the first of "Rita's" novels issued at 2s, had (my bookseller tells me) such a big sale that Maxwell's hurried on "My Lady Coquette," which is also going off very well. I don't care for either. They are too nearly allied to the " Family Herald Library of Fiction " to suit an educated pilate Amongst other well-known novels just out at two shillings may be mentioned Mr Follet Synge's "Olivia Raleigh," and Mr D. C. Murray's "Coals of Fire." The first edition of Austey's "Giant's Robe" was exhausted within a week of publication, and a second is in preparation. A little skotch by this young fellow in " Longman's Magazine " for June has attracted a great deal of notice. It is entitled " Shut Out," and describes a strange incident in the lite of a ne'er-do-weel. Read it if you possibly can. The 17th volume of the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" (Mok to Orm), was issued on Tuesday, and promises to fully equal its predecessors.