Part 6

"If I could only get a little money in from my customers," said a hard-worked West End milliner to me one day during a very hot and exhausting May, "I could run off to the seaside or to Scotland for a week, and take my poor old mother, who needs a change even more than I do. But I can't get any of my ladies to pay." "Write and tell them how it is," I suggested. "Oh, no! That would never do," was the reply. "I should offend them terribly, and they would not only never come back themselves, but would pass the word round among their friends that I am given to dunning."

[Sidenote: One result of the system.]

One of these ladies owed her L800, and probably still owes some of it, though that was three or four seasons since; for her way of paying off is to order a thirty-guinea gown or two, and pay in L50 or L100 to her credit. The truth is that the system is chiefly responsible for the enormous cost of fashionable dress nowadays, since the only means the purveyors can adopt to secure themselves against loss is to charge exorbitant prices. When their customers practically borrow all their money of them, they are well justified in charging interest on it in some form or other. This naturally results in raising the market value of well-cut and skilfully-constructed dresses, &c., and bears very hardly on those who pay their way with ready-money.

[Sidenote: A "ready-money" association.]

Would it not be an excellent idea to form a society of women in aristocratic circles who would bind themselves to pay ready-money for all articles purchased? They could demand, and would certainly obtain, a substantial discount on all such payments, and with the thin edge of the wedge thus inserted the reform would soon be well on its way to permanent establishment.

_THE DOMESTIC GIRL._

[Sidenote: Not necessarily a dowdy.]

Do not for a moment imagine that the domestic girl cannot be smart. She can turn herself out as bewitchingly as anybody, and the same cleverness that goes into her delicious _entrees_, capital sauces, and truly lovely afternoon tea-cakes concerns itself with the ripples of her coiffure, the correct tilt of her hat, and the deft fall of her skirt. The domestic girl need be neither plain nor dowdy. Plenty of exercise and the feeling that she is of use in the world brighten her eyes, keep her complexion clear, and give her that air of lightheartedness that should, but does not always, characterise a girl. How middle-aged is the expression that some of them wear! Both boys and girls in their early twenties have occasionally this elderly look.

[Sidenote: Very much domesticated.]

Of course there is always the extreme domestic girl, who has not a soul above puddings, whose fingers show generally a trace of flour, and whose favourite light reading is recipes. She has been sketched for us pleasantly:--

"She isn't versed in Latin, she doesn't paint on satin, She doesn't understand the artful witchery of eyes; But, oh! sure, 'tis true and certain she is very pat and pert in Arranging the component parts of luscious pumpkin pies.

She cannot solve or twist 'em, viz., the planetary system; She cannot tell a Venus from a Saturn in the skies; But you ought to see her grapple with the fruit that's known as apple, And arrive at quick conclusions when she tackles toothsome pies.

She could not write a sonnet, and she couldn't trim a bonnet, She isn't very bookish in her letter of replies; But she's much at home--oh, very--when she takes the juicy berry And manipulates quite skilfully symposia in pies."

She is well appreciated at meal-times, that girl, but she is not the liveliest of companions. Like the German girl, who is trained to housewifery and little else from her earliest years, she has a dough-like heaviness about her when other topics are started. But why should she ever be domestic only?--and with all the world before her whence to choose delightsome studies and pursuits.

[Sidenote: The Blue Stocking.]

Then there is the girl at the other end of the scale. Here is her portrait:--

"She can talk on evolution; She can proffer a solution For each problem that besets the modern brain. She can punish old Beethoven, Or she dallies with De Koven, Till the neighbours file petitions and complain.

She can paint a crimson cowboy, Or a purple madder ploughboy That you do not comprehend, but must admire. And in exercise athletic It is really quite pathetic To behold the young men round her droop and tire.

She is up in mathematics, Engineering, hydrostatics, In debate with her for quarter you will beg. She has every trait that's charming, With an intellect alarming; Yet she cannot, oh, she cannot, fry an egg!"

[Sidenote: Royal cooks and millinors.]

And let no maiden think that to be domestic is a _bourgeois_ characteristic. Far from it. It is the daughters of the moneyed _bourgeoisie_ who are the idlest and most empty-minded. They think it smart to be able to do nothing. How little they know about it! Were not our Queen's daughters taught to cook and sew, and make themselves useful? Did not the Princesses of Wales learn scientific dress-cutting? And was not a Royal Princess, not very long ago, initiated into the mysteries of hair-dressing? There is no better judge of needlework in the kingdom than Princess Christian. Many of the designs used in the Royal School of Art Needlework are from the clever pencil of Princess Louise, Marchioness of Lorne. Princess Alice, mother of the present Empress of Russia, used to cut out her children's clothes and trim their hats in the far-back days when she was Grand Duchess of Hesse, and was surrounded by the little ones. Princess Henry of Battenberg is a skilful embroidress, besides being an artist and musician. Domesticity has not proved a bar to culture in the case of any of these highly-placed women. The Empress Frederick of Germany, our Princess Royal, is one of the most intellectual and cultivated women in the world, but she is also an adept in the domestic arts. She is a sculptress, and can cleverly wield the brush, as well as her sister, the Marchioness of Lorne. So here is a shining example in high places.

[Sidenote: Homely noblewomen.]

And if we take a step down to Duchesses, Marchionesses, &c., we shall find that blue blood is usually associated with a taste for true British domesticity. The Duchess of Abercorn can sew beautifully. The Duchess of Sutherland can cook and make a gown. She often designs her own dresses. The Marchioness of Londonderry, one of our most famous beauties, is a utilitarian of the first water. She is one of the first authorities on lace, is a philanthropist to her pretty finger-tips, and has often taught the wives of her husband's miners how to cook the family dinner, besides instructing them in the much neglected laws of hygiene. I might multiply examples, but these might surely suffice to show that domesticity is far from being _bourgeois_ and by no means incompatible with ineffable smartness.

[Sidenote: Sensible millionaires.]

The aristocracy of wealth imitates that of birth in such matters; but, in order to do so, it has to be at least a generation old in riches. The _nouveaux riches_ have quite other notions, and think it far beneath the dignity of their daughters to know anything about the domestic arts. But a well-known family of millionaires, which has enjoyed the companionship of our best society for fifty or sixty years, shares its idiosyncrasies on the subject of useful education for its girls. Every one of them has been brought up as if she were obliged to earn her own living. It is left to the purse-proud and the vulgar to bring up their daughters as "fine ladies." It is a grand mistake, in more ways than one, for idle people are never happy people.

[Sidenote: The ideal girl.]

The ideal girl is she who combines with high culture a love of the domestic and a desire to please. This last should not be so excessive as to degenerate into vanity and conceit, but should be sufficiently powerful to induce its possessor to dress attractively, keep her pretty hair at its glossiest, and be as smart and neat and up-to-date in all matters pertaining to the toilette as any of her less-useful sisters; besides cultivating those social graces that do so much to brighten life and sweeten it by making smooth the rough ways and rendering home intercourse as agreeable and pleasant as it should be. There are girls who keep all their prettinesses for the outside world, and are anything but attractive within the home. They are by no means the ideal girls.

_THE GIRL-BACHELOR._

[Sidenote: A clever nest builder.]

The girl-bachelor is often a comfortable creature. She can make a home out of the most unpromising materials. A dreary little flat, consisting of three tiny rooms, with hardly any chance of sunshine getting into any of them for more than three minutes in the afternoon, has been known to be metamorphosed into a most inviting little nest by the exercise of taste and skill, and at a minimum of cost. Two rooms on the second floor of a dull house in a bleak street have often been transformed, by the same means, into a cheery dwellingplace. Much merry contriving goes to this result and serves to make, like quotations and patchwork, "our poverty our pride," and, indeed, there is a keen pleasure in the cutting of our coat according to our cloth; in making ends meet with just a little pulling, and in devising ways and means of adjusting our expenditure to the very limited contents of our exchequer.

[Sidenote: "Sweet are the uses of adversity."]

What a mistake it is to fall into an abyss of discontent just because we are poor! Poverty may become the cause of a thousand unsuspected joys; as it certainly is an education in ever so many ways. Some of us would hardly know ourselves if we never had been poor. Did not poverty teach us to cook, to sew, to make our dresses, to trim our hats, to cover our chairs, to drape our windows, to use a dust-pan and brush and to find out at first hand the charms of active cleanliness, that may be evoked with the aid of a humble duster? And was it not poverty that taught us to appreciate the day of little things, to enjoy the scores of small pleasures that, like wild flowers, are too often passed carelessly over? It has its hardships, truly, and some of them are bitter enough, but many who now are rich enough look back to the days of "puirtith cauld," and recognise how good it was and how much it brought out of undivined capacity; yes, and looking back, can remember the actual pleasures of poverty!

[Sidenote: The retrospect.]

Is there not a pleasure in conquering circumstances--in fighting poverty and making it yield to economy, contrivance, and industry? The fight is often hard and long-continued; and there are sad cases in which it ends in failure and disaster. But when courage and endurance have resulted in victory, and firm footing has been won on the steep hill of success, it is not unpleasant to look back and scan the long years of struggle, endeavouring to compute what they have done for us; how they have enriched, like the snows of winter, ground that might otherwise have remained for ever arid and unprofitable.

[Sidenote: Bargain hunting.]

[Sidenote: "The little grocer's shop."]

There is a wonderful cheap world to be found in London, like an _entresol_ between a palatial shop and a magnificent first floor. Into this curious world the girl-bachelor soon finds her way. She knows exactly the twopenny-halfpenny little shop where she can get art-muslin at a penny-three-farthings a yard. Most of it is hideous, but she is clever at picking out the few pretty pieces. She sometimes purchases a quite beautiful bit of colour for the brightening of her rooms in the shape of pottery vases for a couple of pence. No one better than the girl-bachelor knows that the best value for her money is to be found at the little grocer's shop in a poor neighbourhood. The poor are, naturally, intent on getting at least a shillingsworth for every shilling they lay out, and no tradesman can make a living in such localities unless he purveys the best provisions at fair prices. It is notorious that customers who buy in small quantities, as the poor are obliged to do, living from hand to mouth with their few shillings a week, are more profitable than those who can afford to buy largely, and the tradesman who conscientiously provides good wares at a moderate profit flourishes comfortably in such circumstances. Here the girl-bachelor gets her stores. Not for her are the plate-glass windows of the great West End "establishments," which have to pay high rentals and the cost of horses and carts and extra men to send round daily for the convenience of their customers. The little shop in the back street is good enough for her.

[Sidenote: Her thrift.]

[Sidenote: A splendid training.]

And how expert does she become in her marketing! Such a thing as waste is absolutely unknown in the tiny sphere of home of which she is the centre and the sun. The bones from her miniature joints of beef and mutton are not cast away until they are white and smooth from boiling and reboiling, the stock they yield being skilfully made up into tempting soups and savoury dishes of macaroni. There is splendid training for the future housewife in all this; not only in the matter of food itself, but in the diligent industry needed to combine its preparation with the day's work, and the practical knowledge of what such work of preparation involves. The kindest and most considerate mistresses are those who know exactly how much time and trouble it takes to produce certain results.

[Sidenote: Unfortunate man.]

Contrast the girl-bachelor with her peer of the helpless sex. Look at the dingy lodging-house breakfast-table of the poor clerk. Do you see the crushed and soiled tablecloth, the cup and saucer rather wiped than washed, the fork with suspicious lack of clear outline along its prongs, hatefully reminiscent of previous meals, the knife powdered with brown from recent contact with the knifeboard, and the food itself untempting to the palate and not very nutritious to the system.

[Sidenote: "Cooking comes by nature."]

Cooking comes almost by nature to the bachelor-girl. With a good stove-lamp, a frying-pan, a chafing-dish, and a boilerette, with a saucepan or two and a kettle, she has an all-sufficing _batterie de cuisine_. The wonders she can work with these are known to many of her friends, and even those with comfortable establishments of their own are often fain to confess that her cookery invites them as the achievements of the queen of their kitchen often fail to do.

[Sidenote: "How it strikes a contemporary."]

And in many other essentials the girl-bachelor has the advantage of the ordinary young man. Hear what a contemporary has to say:--"The average youth, from the time he leaves school, wants unlimited tobacco for his pipes and cigarettes, and often runs to several cigars a day; he seldom passes many hours without a glass of something--wine, spirits, or beer, according to his tastes or company, and he wants a good deal of amusement of the sing-song or cheap music-hall kind, to say nothing of much more expensive meals. Tobacco would not cost him much if he were content with a little smoke when the day's work was over, instead of indulging in perpetual cigarettes. The girl has none of these expenses; she often economises, and gives herself healthy exercise by walking at least part of the way to her occupation in fine weather; she does not smoke; she rarely eats or drinks between meals, though she may nibble a bit of chocolate, which, after all, is wholesome food; her mid-day meal seldom costs more than sixpence, and she is glad after working hours to get home, where she enjoys the welcome change of reading a book and making and mending her clothes, concocting a new hat, and so forth."

It is a healthy, happy, often a merry, cheery life; and if the girl-bachelor often sighs to be rich, the wish is not allowed to generate discontent, but serves to arouse a wholesome ambition which may lead, in time, to the realisation of the wish. And who so happy, then, as the matured and cultured woman who reaps where she has sown, and finds, in the fullest development of her faculties the real meaning of the highest happiness, viz., living upward and outward to the whole height and breadth and depth of her innate possibilities.

_THE MIDDLE-AGED CHAPERON._

[Sidenote: The miseries of the chaperon.]

[Sidenote: Draughts.]

[Sidenote: The charge who cannot dance.]

Many are the miseries of the middle-aged chaperon! Is it not enough, think you, to see one's lost youth reflected in the blithesome scene, to remember the waltzes of long ago, to recall the partners of the past, and the pleasant homage no longer forthcoming, and to feel within a response to the music and the rhythm of the dance, ridiculously incongruous with an elderly exterior, without suffering any added woes? And yet they are manifold. There are the draughts! Windows opened for the relief of heated dancers, pour down cold airs on the uncovered shoulders of chilly chaperons. What cared they for draughts in the long-ago, when all the world was young? But now a draught is a fearsome thing. But worse, far worse, is the girl who cannot dance, who treads on her partners' toes, and knocks against their knees, and is returned with a scowl to her wretched chaperon. "I know you are going to the Mumpshire ball," says some one. "Would you mind taking my girl with you?" If she is a bad performer she is returned with astonishing alacrity and punctuality at the end of each dance; and quite perceptibly to her temporary guardian's practised eye is the word passed round among the young men to avoid her as they would the--something. After a few dances, a sense of vicarious guilt seizes upon the chaperon. She knows the shortcomings of her charge are to be visited partly upon herself, and she anticipates the angry glare with which each man returns the young woman, and retreats in haste, malevolently eyeing the chaperon.

[Sidenote: The reward.]

And the reward? The reward is to be treated with great stiffness by the girl's mother, and to hear that she said: "I shall never ask Mrs. What's-her-name to take my girl to a ball again. Her own daughters danced every dance, while my poor child was left out in the cold. I think they might have introduced their partners to her."

[Sidenote: Romance.]

[Sidenote: And Death.]

Such are the small gnat-like stings of the present moment, while the poor chaperon is remembering the dances of long ago, the dark-eyed partner who waltzed so exquisitely, and whose grave is in the dismal African swamp so far away; the lively, laughing, joking boy who would put his name down for half a dozen dances, only to have it promptly scratched out again with many scoldings. He is now a very fat man with a disagreeable habit of snorting in cold weather. How gladly the chaperon's thoughts fly away from him, living, substantial, commonplace, to the poor fellow who died at sea on his way home from that horrid war in Afghanistan. How strangely true it is that were it not for grisly Death, and pain and grief, there would be no true romance in all the world. If every life were an epic, or an idyll, would not both be commonplace?

_LIGHTHEARTEDNESS._

[Sidenote: Lightheartedness and animal spirits.]

[Sidenote: Cheerfulness.]

Oh! what a delightful quality it is, both to the possessor and his friends. Lightheartedness is sometimes confused with "animal spirits," but it is not at all the same thing. The latter we share with the young lambs in the meadows, the young goats on the rocky hillsides, the merry schoolboy in the days of his irresponsible youth, and the madcap schoolgirl who thinks those hours lost that are not spent in laughing. Light-heartedness is ingrained in the very nature of those who enjoy it; while animal spirits are merely one of the exterior circumstances, incident to youth and health in a world that was created happy, and will never lose traces of that original Divine intention. Cheerfulness, again, is distinct from both. Men are always telling women that it is the duty of the less-burdened sex to meet their lords and masters with cheerful faces; and if any doubt were felt as to the value of the acquirement--for cheerfulness often has to be acquired and cultivated like any other marketable accomplishment--shall we not find a mass of evidence in the advertisement columns of the daily papers? Do not all the lady-housekeepers and companions describe themselves as "cheerful"? Lone, lorn women could scarcely be successes in either capacity, and cheerfulness is a distinct qualification for either post. A sort of feminine Mark Tapleyism must occasionally be needed to produce it, and keep it in full bloom.

[Sidenote: In trouble and work.]

Well, 'tis our duty to be cheerful, and those of us that are lighthearted have no difficulty about it. The quality survives troubles of every sort, and lifts its possessor over many a Slough of Despond, into which the heavy-hearted would sink and be overwhelmed. And what a boon is lightheartedness when there is work to do! The man who whistles over his carpentering is happy, and his work is all the better for it. The mother who is chirpy in the nursery finds it an easy matter to manage the youngsters. They adore her bright face. And there are women who keep up this delightful sunniness of disposition well on to seventy years.

"The world that knows itself too sad Is proud to keep some faces glad,"

says Owen Meredith, and it is good to see the happy twinkle in some aged eyes.

[Sidenote: With advancing years.]

[Sidenote: The humours of life.]

In married life there comes a time when the romance of love, like a glorious "rose of dawn," softening down into the steady light of noonday, becomes transmuted into a comfortable, serviceable, everyday friendship and comradeship. In the same way the animal spirits of youth often fade with maturity into a seriousness which is admirable in its way, a serenity which keeps a dead level of commonplace. If there is no natural lightheartedness to fall back upon, there then arises the everyday man or woman, with countenance composed to the varied businesses of life, and never a gleam of fun or humour to be found in eyes or lips. They go to the play on purpose to laugh, and enjoy themselves hugely in the unwonted exercise of facial muscles; but for weeks between whiles they seem unconscious of the infinite possibilities of humorous enjoyment that lie about them. It needs the joyous temperament to extract amusement from these. If that is absent the fields of fun lie fallow. At a recent entertainment for children a boy employed in selling chocolate creams cried his wares in such a lugubrious tone of voice as to be highly inconsistent with their inviting character. "Chocklits!" "Chocklits!" he groaned on the lower G, as though he had been vending poison for immediate use. Only two of the children present saw the fun of this. And so it is with these endless unrehearsed effects of daily life. The lighthearted seize them and make of them food for joy. And lightheartedness is of every age, from seven to seventy-seven and perhaps beyond it. Was there not once a blithe old lady who lived to the age of 110, and died of a fall from a cherry tree then?

The joyous natures have their sorrows:--

"The heart that is earliest awake to the flowers Is always the first to be touched by the thorns."

[Sidenote: "The merry heart."]