WOMAN'S WORLD

Taranaki Daily News, Volume LIII, Issue 83, 16 July 1910, Page 10

WOMAN'S WORLD

MUST EXGACKD COUPLES SAVE?

(By Frances Mary Cur/.oii)

1 have known several engaged couples who, very shortly after they had become engaged," decided* that it was necessary to "save every penny towards the home to be, and therefore instituted a rigorous system of joint self-denial. Let'tv went short of a new hat, and of a fc*\v of the pretty (ami most becoming) fal-lals of dress' in which her soul delighted. Dick gave up his billiards, and" his subscription to something or other, and his game of cards. And—foolish young people—they talked to one another with great pride of this thing, and that thing by which they were saving a shilling or so; and for a 'time neither of them noticed that they were becoming a pair of cross and uncomfortable lovers, for the simple reason that their minds were full of saving and they both (though they would not I have acknowledged it for the world) terribly missed the little accustomed luxuries' which are such sweeteners of life.

If it is really necessary for the home which you have not yet found, but which (with a bunch of keys from the house agent's office in your pocket) you spend a Saturday afternoon now and then trying to discover, save by aU means. That is prudent and wise. But don't save more than is necessary ,in that happy and never-to-be-forgotten time when the gates of love are only just open, and the land of life beyond those wonderful gates is beautiful and rosy with love's sun.

Letty, buy Dick that neat cigarettecase he so much admired in a window the other day. Dick, when you leave the office, go straight to that shop both of you were loo'king at recently, and send off to Letty the very bracelet it made her eyes shine to see as you peeped liked a pair of children at the jeweller's trinkets, so tempting on their beds of velvet.

Believe me, that bracelet is not so very dear. In a couple of years, if you pay three times the amount for a bracelet for your chosen woman, it is likely it will not give a quarter of the real ■pleasure that the possession of this one will give her now. As long as you can #ee your way clear for the first expenses of married life, do not stint the little things while you are engaged. Marriage is for a long time, and a stout pair of hearts will have sufficient strength to meet its money difficulties as they come along. But the present time, engaged couples, is for many reasons going to be the best time in your whole lives. There win possibly he no time like it for either of you. All the wonder and mystery of love is around you now, chosen man and chosen woman out of all the crowding multitudes of the .world.

The rose leaves are about your path. 1 'There is a fine glow to the early days j of marriage, when it is such glorious fun to be in a house of your own; but up come the many problems of married' life, and in the nature of things that' glow cannot last always. | Iknew an engaged pair who saved all | they could over a long engagement. And j honestly, to me all the result from the 1 money seemed that, when they married,' 1 they "were able to have a very superior kind of servant to look down upon them,! and that they filled the rooms of a big j house with a lot of unnecessary ornate' lumber, of which both of them got ;' heartily tired before the first two mar- i ried years had gone. j And I knew another couple who saved very little between tb.em, but went out* on "Jolly little excursions whenever they' could slip away together, and spent! their money that way. They talk to-! gether about those happy times. now,j and though they faced the great change i of marriage in so happy-go-lucky a fash-1 ion, they are to-day the happiest mar-i ried people I know. |

It does not make a successful marriage merely to have money in the savings bank. ! There, especially, is that saving-car-1 ried-to-excess habit the wrong thing for' an engaged couple, when it forbids them having those pleasant excursions together under the idea that ''they cannot, afford it now." j My dear people, it is the time more j than any time when you should afford : it, the time when you get the fullest' possible value for the money you spend' on those little trips. Those little jaunts' will make you proper pals; and there, is nothing like good-hearted "pal-ship"' to ■ ensure your married life being a happy one. You cannot get to be real. pals unless you play together as often) as the work'of the world will let you. j Before you marry, Letty and Dick, you are happy boy and girl. Make it a j boy-and-girl time. For when you are growing old you will know it to have been the best time of your lives, air I said and done. i

ARE WOMEN DULL? ; A Frenchman has just been declaring' that women, as a sex, are the inevitable victims of dullness. He accounts for this on the theory of their poverty of sensation, the limitation of their careers, and the fact that they are hammed in on every side by the conventions of society, and he concludes from this that for a woman to get through life without being bored to death she must possess a talent for doing important things. or an immense facility for sleepiness.' Being a woman isn't, of course, as inter-! esting as being a man. He is a kind of] understudy in life where one never gets on in the big productions, except as al sort of auxiliary; nevertheless, being a, woman has its diversions and its moments of thrilling adventure. As a mat- 1 ter of fact, life to the average person

who is merely born, who grows up, and; gets married, who works for his living, and dies, is not full of blood-curdling ex- j citement, and it is by no means certain] that women have the* dullest end of this, commonplace lot. To begin with, a wo-; man may count on having several years of hair-raising adventures in catching a; husband. This is hunting big game with a vengeance, and just what a chase it iivolTes, what foxiness of movement, what weariness of eye and hand, what nicety of calculation it takes, only the: experienced know. It is the police fiction I to speak of husbands as if they came in] flocks, and were as easy to knock over] as tame pigeons. Never was a more' baseless fabrication. The modern man is a timid dear, and the woman who captures him has to hustle out and corner him, and before she finally does it she has generally had what our sporting friends call "a run for her money."

Then there is the excitement of keeping a husband after you get him. This \ is also a peculiarly feminine pastime, \ full of thrills and 'dangers, for man is \ still an imperfectly domesticated animal.; and. no matter how old he is, he is al- j ;i ways liable to stray away from home't and i'et lost. Another source of excite- ? ment to women is the servant question, i A man who treats his clerks well is eer-, tain to find them at their posts every! 1 daw Not so with the servant girl. -No I woman knows when she opens her eyes i whether she, will iiml her treasure fled j in the niirht tir not. Thus is a woman's day ushered in with the thrilling uncer- , tainly of whether she will have to rise,, to get her own and the family breakfast or not. Nov has an\- woman yet been able to devise any way of keeping a ser-; vant. Tlu> tactics that work with one

girl fail with another, and the great hu-' man conundrum is still unsolved. The! -ti'ni authority tends to make Bridget j keep iij) to tin' mark wounds the sensi- ' tive feelings of Mary. Life maybe full' of thorns, but it can never be uneventful as Ion;; as we women have the servant girl to deal with, in England, among men. the national sport—the only L'ame that sends the blood bounding through their veins with excitement —is money-making. Women ihave a far more hilariously exciting amusement, and that is spending money. Life will always be worth living to a woman so long as there are shops and she has the

wherewithal 10 buy. Thai, alone is an interest that lends piquancy to existence. It is, iiulec.!. impo.-siblc for a woman to imagine herself .being bored in a world that still contains marked-down sales and the mad rush of the bargainhunter during the bi£ London sales. French women may be bored, but not English women. What we need is not more but more .placidity. Nervous prostration, not dullness, is our commonest complaint.—Dorothy Dix.

PRETTY GIRL HINTS. For scenting linen, take seven parts of powdered cedar wood, seven parts of dried lavender llowers, one part of powdered gum benzoin, one part of powdered cloves, and two parts of powdered cinnamon. Place in a small bag, and keep this with the linen.

To clean one's hairbrushes effectively without softening the bristles, dissolve a lump of soda in a quart of hot, soft water. 'Shake the bristles thoroughly through the water, keeping the back and handle of the brush perfectly dry. When the bristles look clean rinse in cold water. Stand on the bristles to dry. An excellent shampoo powder is composed of a quarter of a pound of borax, half a pound of .powdered Castile soap, and fifteen drops of oil of roseman, This should be sifted three or four times. The use of this shampoo powder leaves the hair sweet and clean, besides giving it a beautiful sheen. After the shampoo rinse it thoroughly in clean water.

A good treatment for unduly moist hands is to bathe them frequently in warm water to which a little alum or vinegar has been added. Olive-oil is a good skin food for the hands, and a few weeks of this treatment works wonders with regard to their whiteness and smoothness.

A good pomade for whitening the hands is made as follows: —Melt one ounce of lanoline. Then stir in two teaspoonfuls of ordinary paraffin and one teaspoonful of sweet almond oil. When rather cooler add a few drops of oil of bergamot. To be applied at night and retained until tho morning. Bran bags have a very softening effect upon the skin. The bran is put into a bag made of coarse muslin and thoroughsoaked and squeezed until the bath water is brown and full of bubbles. The water should be quite warm, and one should stay in it only a few minutes. Massage of the entire body following this bath is beneficial. -

DAINTY DISHES. Dorothy Puddings.—Beat an egg, and then add to it half an ounce of white sugar, one ounce of sultanas, and two ounces of melted butter or dripping. Beat for several minutes, gradually stirring in sufficient flour to make a fainy solid custard. Fill some small greased cups two-thirds full, twist a buttered paper over each, and bake in a quick oven. Turn out to serve. Savory Eggs with Salad.—Butter some small cups, scatter into each a little chopped ham, parsley, and a gooj seasoning of pepper and salt. Break an egg into each and place in tin oven to set thoroughly, so as to cut hard when cold. Put some salad on a fancy dish, dress as liked, and arrange the eggs in

a circle on it. Garnish with beetroot or tomato, and serve. Rhubarb Cake.—Cut six sticks of rhubarb into inch lengths, and stew it with | half a pound of crushed loaf sugar.! When thoroughly cooked add half an ounce of gelatine powder and stir till dissolved. Slice four sponge cakes, and with them line a small pudding basin. Put a layer of rhubarb over, and arrange the remainder of cake in layers j wiu' i?v rhubarb. Cover with a saucer and small weight, and leave till next day, when turn out and serve with cus- j tarcl round. A Good Sauce for Stewed Fruit.—Boil half an ounce of very tine sago in one pint of milk till so Jender . that, the. grains almost disappear. Baked Cup Puddings.—Beat two eggs very lightly, add two teacupfuls of milk and one cupful of fine llower. Beat well, and bake in little cups in a quick oven. Serve with sweet sauee. Potted Cheese is an economical way of using up scraps of cheese. Grate the cheese finely, and add sufficient butter to moisten it. Season to taste with made mustard and pepper, and press into a pot. This mixture will keep good for several weeks, and is excellent eaten plain, as cheese, or for a savoury spread on hot buttered toast slightly browned in the oven. Cinnamon Cake.—Mix thoroughly one pound of baking powder and a teaspoonful of ground cinnamon. Rub in six ounces of clarified dripping, and make into a light dough with two beaten eggs and half a pint of milk. Place in a well-greased tin and bake for one hour mid a-half or two hours. Sultana Scones are delicious for tea and very easy to make. Put into a I basin one pound of flour,' one pinch of salt; and one teaspoonful of bakingpowder. Rub into this two 'ounces 01 butter or clarified dripping. Add two ounces of sultanas and make into a light dough with milk. Roll "out to about three-quarters of an inch thick, cut into fancy shapes, brush over with milk and bake in a quick oven. Stewed Macaroni.—Boil one quarter of a pound of large macaroni and one large onion in salted water till tender, but not soft. Pour off the water, add one pint of stock, pepper and salt to taste, and let all simmer for an hour. Just before serving, stir in a dessert- \ spoonful of gra ted cheese. Arrange in a deep dish, cover with breadcrumbs, put I a few bits of butter on the top, and l brown in a quick oven. Hand graiet; : cheese with this dish. I Lamb's Head au Gratin.—Parboil the

[ head, then drain it and brush over it j; ! the yolk of an egg, sprinkle chopped egg 1 i over, then a layer of breadcrrJaibs, and < 1 lastly a little butter. Broil in a Dutch i , oven before a clear fire. Mince the 1 , tongue very finely, and stew it in thickgravy, adding a spoonful of some acid < ! pickle. Take the brains and make cakes i thus: Scald them and pound in a mor- , tar with an equal quantity of breadcrumbs,, flavor with sweet herbs, pepper and salt, and make into flat cakes. Brush : over with egg, dip in breadcrumbs, and | fry in hot fat. To serve, place the head , on a hot dish with the minced tongue , round, and garnish with brain cakes and a few rolls of fried bacon. ,! HINTS FOR THE HOME.

Mice dislike camphor, so place it in their haunts, and they will forsake them. Cut glass should be washed in warm water (without soap) with a brush. If very dirty, dip the brush into powdered whi'ting, rinsing well aftenvawls. Feather pillows which have stored are apt to have an unpleasant odor when taken out. There is nothing like constant shaking in the sun and air to get rid of this. Ink for packages.—Take a little lampblack and work it up with turpentine, till of the consistency to How easily from pen or brush, whichever you use for the purpose. White paint, or paint of a delicate j color, should not be washed with soap j or soda. Instead, put a little fine oat- j meal into the water, and for the stained parts dip the cloth into the dry oatmeal. When preparing vegetables or fruits

that stain the fingers, a ven good plan is to previously rub the thumb and forefinger with a.little, sreus.e, .and. it._wilj. prevent the -tains that are so unsightly and difficult to remove. When imilin- ch'tlitf; in a copper, fill fust with water and put in the cloths slowlv, allowing them to soak iit the water. If put into the boiler in a mass, the water does not soak in and dispel the dirt as it should. Carved Japanese furniture is very difficult to keep perfectly dusted. Have a new, soft paint brush (such as painters use), for the bristles will penetrate the deepest carving without in any way scratching the wood.