# The Ugly-Girl Papers/Chapter 21
### CHAPTER XXI.

* Devices of Uneasy Age.
* Bread Paste and Court-plaster to Conceal Wrinkles.
* Accepting the Situation.
* Plain Women and Agreeable Toilets.
* Examples.
* The Rector's Daughter.
* Dressing on Two Hundred a Year.
* Écru Linen and White Nansook.
* A Senator's Wife.
* A Washington Success.
* Dull, Thin Faces.
* Hay-colored Hair.
* Advantages of Lining Rooms with Mirrors.
Did you ever go to see a lady, not of uncertain but of uneasy age, and find yourself ushered into the family sitting-room by a new servant, who did not know the ways of the house? Did you find her with a court-plaster lozenge an inch wide between her eyes, and one at the onter ends of her eyebrows? At sight of this remarkable ornament, did concern express itself lest she had fallen down stairs, or had a difference with the cat? Were these insinuations parried with veteran resources, and were yon dissuaded from further ​inquiry by the delicate remark that she could interest you better than by giving the history of her scratches? Of course you knew there was a mystery about those bits of court-plaster, and perhaps feel so to this day, unless Nature have given you the mind of a detective. If so, your patience is to be rewarded. The secret of those patches was not scratches, but wrinkles.
I trust due tribute will be paid to the ingenuity of failing age, which has perfected this device for warding off its unwelcome tokens. The rationale of the plan is very simple. The plaster contracts the skin, and prevents its sinking into creases and lines. It also protects and softens the skin. I have heard of one oldish lady who wears these ornamental appendages, all the time in the house when not receiving company, and covers parts of her face with a dough made of well-mumbled bread to keep her complexion fair. The heroism of this resistance to time must be applauded, but it is an open question whether ​the play is worth the candle. The beauty of age lies not in freshness like that of sixteen, but in clear and lofty expression, in the look of experience and not unkindly shrewdness, in the finish of self-repression, of calmness, trust, and sympathy. These things grow on a face as it loses freshness and roundness, just as the sky begins to show through thinning boughs.
The greatest of blessings for some people would be to learn to accept themselves and their gifts. If they could stand apart from themselves a while to see their becoming points, much of their repining would be dropped. Every thing and every body is beautiful in its season. There is a wholesome plainness that accords with domestic life and natural surroundings, as the bark of trees relieves their green. The color of health, the gentleness and sweetness that come of a conquered self, are elements of beauty that make any face tolerable. How dear are the plain faces that have watched our childhood, with whom we have grown up so closely that feature and ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/227 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/228 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/229 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/230 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/231 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/232 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/233 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/234 ​Page:Ugly-girl papers.djvu/235