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THE FINE PART OF A LADY

NEW YORK, SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 5, 1887.

Tand lay the foundation for white in taxe will be the tradition sympathy with one's fellow-beings? Many a joke of depression,

time

of its period, but neither fashion, custom, nor sentiment can alter the elements which in a woman's nature qualify her to perform that finest part in life which is a lady's, using the term in its most ennobling sense. We recognize her in every century and under all circumstances; we know her by her sense of the fitness of things and her instinctive good-breeding, whether she wears the dress of Queen Esther, the garb of Ruth during her days of "sweet following," of an Eliza

beth, Queen of Hungary, the sober colors of an Elizabeth Fry, or the cornette of a Soeur Rosalie; and we know her as promptly and as surely when we meet her in unheroic fashion, or undistinguished by any of the loftier virtues and abilities which marked those women of abiding name; we know her, whatever her dress or rank, when she smiles genially as she performs some kindly service for a stranger, when she seeks out the forgotten or depressed member of a company to give him good cheer, when she bestows a favor, and, above all, when she accepts one; and if she be all her title should imply, then, rich or poor, high or low, does she right royally deserve to have those familiar lines apply to her

A perfect woman, nobly planned,

To warn, to comfort, and command."

Fashion may adorn her outwardly, add to her natural graces some external charm, but it nev

er can enslave her, because primarily, essentially, instinctively, she is natural.

There seems to be in

the minds of most young
people launching forth
into society to-day an
idea that a certain man-
ner is necessary if one
would be "good form."
Just as the girl of the
period has learned to
hold her shoulders
squarely and straight, to
dress in tailor-made
gowns, and cultivate a
fondness for out-of-door
sports, so she seems to
think that her dignity is
imperilled by
by being
frank and gracious, and
above all kindly, in man-
ner. She expresses her
opinions freely enough
in her own "set." She
can laugh and talk and
smile and bow where she
feels sure of her audi-
ence; but would she vol
untarily turn to some less
prosperous sister to make
her feel welcome and
happy and at her ease in
a company of compara-
tive strangers? Would
she think it worth her
while, or indeed even
"proper," to answer the
petition of a little street
Arab with a kindly word
in a gentle tone? Would
she thank the servant
who rendered her some
passing service? Would
she give a word of sym-
pathy here, a word of
good cheer there? Would she as hostess make her table or her
drawing-room bright and happy for all her guests, diffusing the
charm of kindness, which is the root of all graciousness, and make of
her slightest hospitality something for which her family and friends
were happier and better? And yet all of these things suggest the
true part of a lady-the lady as opposed to the lower-bred woman,
the woman without kindness, graciousness, or tact.

this. Noblesse oblige, say we. The true woman's part in life is to
make those around her happier and better, and how is it to be
done if there lingers any prejudice against natural kindliness and
many an hour of care, have been made easy to endure because of
one little word spoken, one friendly look, or one gentle touch of
sympathy. And do these things cost time or money? Do they
shut one out even from the fashionable pleasures of the day? On
the contrary, do they not serve to dignify what might otherwise be
only trivial? We know of some who consider a certain silence as
the most "elegant" manner in society-a silence which can mean

AUTUMN AND WINTER TOILETTES.

Fig. 1.-PLUSH COAT.-FRONT.-[For Back, see Page 761.]
For pattern and description see Supplement, No. VII., Figs. 51-57.

Standing hour after hour at her receptions, the first lady in our land has won all hearts by the uniformity of her kindliness, for every one the genial look and pleasant word, for each outstretched hand the same kindly pressure; and there need be no hypocrisy in

Fig. 2.-VICUÑA CLOTH COSTUME.
For description see Supplement.

TEN CENTS A COPY. WITH A SUPPLEMENT.

stances, a lady will remember her guest or guests first, and if she does not, Spanish fashion, lay her house and all her personal property at his or her feet, she must lay there her sympathies, her quickest comprehension, her most genial manner, and the kindest impulses of her heart-must, that is, if she does her part, and must. most certainly, if she desires the best kind of popularity. She must remember that in this world no two people are alike, and from no two can we expect just the same amount of good-humor, alertness, delicacy, or, to be general, savoir-faire; but all these deficiencies in some can be made up by the large-hearted kindliness which distinguishes others, and this our ideal lady must have.

Fig. 3.-TUFTED WOOL MANTLE.-[For pattern
and description see Suppl., No. VI., Figs. 42-50.]

anything, from a downright insult to an intimation that one is
bored unless by the very choicest flowers of speech-a silence that
can make timid souls shrink into themselves and bolder ones grow
weary; and there are others who, to use an expression wafted to
us recently from a group at a lawn party, "freeze out" undesirable
members in a company not in "their set"-for example, by talking
over their heads, or discussing subjects of which the stranger
knows nothing. And can anything be more ill-bred than this mo-
nopoly of topics? Conversation in a mixed company should al-
ways be inclusive; never make references which leave some peo-
ple out in the cold. And on all occasions, independent of circum-

And another element in that fine, sweet composition of hers-that thing called "temperament,' which is really native kindness and truth-is to be above suspecting others of mean motives, or to be the cause of spreading a scandal. A lady's part shuts all this out. She cannot, it is true, be foolishly credulous or sympathetic, but she can be, nay, she must be, temperate, merciful, and just, and if by her means one scandal ceases, one human being is raised from a cloud of misapprehension, her part has not been an idle or a thankless one, and in pronouncing other hearts and lives clear, she purifies and strengthens her own.

There are downright practical bits of "business" for her, too. She has, or ought to have, a kingdom within herself, out of which she brings order and comfort and propriety to those about her. Before all things she should seek to keep her "house in order," letting charitable enterprises that demand executive talent take only the overflow of her abilities. Her place is among her own, and to them are her first and freshest moments owing. But there is a current of actual charitable work through all this broader stream of domestic life, whether it flows in tiny channels, sending only words and looks rippling across its surface, or broadens with some good impressive and encouraging example. We have known women undertaking this fine part of a lady who could not treat well those whom they employed for money. Such a one engages a governess for her children. Straightway the fact of their relative positions gives the employer a sense that the other woman must be an inferior. "It is only the governess," she will say, forgetting that she ought not to place her children under the educational care and influence of a woman she regards as beneath her and them. "Those sort of people are this, that, and the other," will this sham aristocrat say, relegating the paid teacher to a lower stratum where sensitive. ness is unknown. On the other hand, the employée who is not instinct

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ively a lady flounders about helplessly in her position of hireling. She expects slights, consequently receives them. She lacks tact and a large-minded simple graciousness, such as belong to the lady, no matter what her position, and accordingly she considers a sort of resentful hauteur the equivalent for good manners, the shutting up of her sweetest sympathies the most dignified attitude, while she resents what is often meant for kindliness on her employer's part as patronage, thereby losing the chance of creating that most desirable of all gifts of the gods, a true friend.

Volumes might be written on the same subject, yet after all the thing resolves itself into something very simple. Whether you wear

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cloths shown in this illustration, one of plain cream-colored linen with graceful corner designs embroidered in long stitch, the other of linen damask with a canvas-woven border in which a conventional border design is worked in cross stitch with colored Harris (linen) embroidery thread. The fullsized outline design for Fig. 1 is given in Fig. 58 on the pattern-sheet Supplement. The en

tire design is out-
lined with terra-
cotta linen thread
in stem stitch; the
veining in
in stem
stitch and the seed-
ing of French knots
are worked in olive
green and terra-
cotta thread, and
the cornucopia is
filled in long stitch
and with lines of
feather stitching,
both worked in
white linen thread.
The cloth has a
narrow drawn bor-
der which is hem-
stitched, and the
edge is finished
with a frill of color-
ed Smyrna lace.
Fig. 3 gives the
working pattern for
the border of the
damask cloth, Fig.
2, together with a
list of the colors
which the symbols
represent. Instead
of the border Fig. 3,
that given in Fig. 4
might be used.
This is worked in
cross stitch for the
solid parts, with all
the outlines of the
figures defined in
Holbein stitch of

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Fig. 3.-TAILOR DRESS.-BACK.-[See Fig. 4.]
For description see Supplement.

HILE alco

holic stimulants have been

given more largely to the use of the masculine portion of our race, the feminine portion has contented itself with tea, and has had to undergo a good deal of reviling, and of assurance that there is death in the pot, in consequence. It is told them that tea is only to be had in an adulterated condition; that it is dyed, and poisoned, and made over from the tea leaves of the original drinkers. As yet all this has made no difference with the women who depend upon the herb. They will not believe that all the tea grown on all the miles of the Chinese tea farms has to be adul

terated, or that enough is used there to make its redrying and coloring worth while. It is told them also that it produces painful excitement and wakefulness, when taken in quantity, from which comes painful reaction, that it acts like tannin in the stomach, that it produces theismwhatever that production may beand that the professional tea-taster, who does not even swallow the tea he tastes, is always sooner or later ruined physically by

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