Summer Passing.

New Zealand Tablet, Volume XXX, Issue 8, 20 February 1902, Page 19

Summer Passing .

We are approaching the time ' When summer gathers up her robes of glory, And like a dream of beauty glids away' ; and the women-folk of our homes are making- the annual raid on the corner grocery stora for their supply of black lacquer. This ia a concoction used for cleaning fenders, and metamorphising a ' gem or a ' sailor' into a piece of head-gear, good enough for the ' vapors and clouds and storms 'of winter. There will be a slight difficulty this year, because this season's hats are built chiefly of chiffon or window-curtain lace, and resemble in appearance drunk and disorderly lamp-shades. The only solid thing in the whole make-up —and the only thing that will take the paint —is the piece of jewellery that holds the wobbly brim up in front, and which looks like an overgrown and corpulent harness-buckle. Nevertheless, let the lacquer be applied. True, some poet wrote : ' This world Is full of change, change, change —nothing but change I' But by ' change' he did not mean current cash. So, if a ' leghorn' (or, for that matter, a coohin-china, or a bantam) can be turned into a presentable and decent-looking hat with only a ' shilliny ' bottle of lacquer, why should we, men, grumble ? Anyway, let ua be chivalrous, and remember the words of Mr. Dooley : ' A lady's a

lady, be she ever so humble ; an', as Shakespeare says, < cursed be th' man that'd raise an axe to her, save in th' way iv a joke.'