Elderly maidens at the Milliners.

Te Aroha News, Volume II, Issue 82, 27 December 1884, Page 6

Elderly maidens at the Milliners.

I have often accompanied ladies to the West End* modistes, and have sometimes witnessed little incidonts of a very amusing kind. I have seen "girls" of thirfcy-nine and a bit make a pretty shop-girl try on all the hats in the place, and then go to a mirror and try them on themselves, one after another. The disappointed look of these " beauties " was a picture. "It's a singular thing," they seemed to say with a wry face ; "they none of them suit me as well as they did that girl." And then what a wicked, murderous look these pretty modistes of twenty-five — an age that shows no mercy —would say, " Oh, madame, that hat suits you beautifully !" I used to admire the angelic patience with which they tried their whole stock-in-trade on the ill-favoured creatures. It must often be very amusing work, and must furnish materials for many a good tale when they go home in the evening. One day, at a fashionable modistc'f, in New Bond-street, a perfect scarecrow had just chosen, after an hour's deliberation, a delicious little white hat, which a girl ot twenty would have thought somewhat too innocentlooking. Two charming assistants showed the lady out with the gravest air in the world, made her a low bow, and shut the door. "I think," said one of them, "that woman ought to expire at forty, don't you ?"— "Les Filles de John Bull,""by Max O'JRell.