The evening light. [volume] (San Antonio, Tex.) 1881-1883, 1882-02-07

upon the value of dress than the thin
and mercur:al Sara. For years she
has made elaborate studies of the eff
feet of costume on the stage, and her
energy is devoted when she has new
role, not to getting up the lines, which
she does by kind of miraculous in
stlnct (she is an astonishingly "quick
study but to planning the dresses.
Felix gets note from her at S O'Clock
IN the afternoon, "expect me at TO-"
Down she comes fresh as daisy after
days work which would have laid an
ordinary woman up for a week, and
until long after midnight she studies
the question CT color, the various mer-
its and dement's of "stugs', and the
aesthetic value of embroideries. Before
her departure for America on her
grand tour" she sent me note of in
vltation to attend one of these even
ing consultations chere Felix. l went,
and shall never forget the dazzling
effect produced on me by long pro-
cesslon of young girls, each one wear
ing a dress destined for Sara's adorn-,
ment on the stage. The blondes, the
brunettes the tall and graceful, the short
and dumpy, in their borrowed finery,
under the glare of many gas jets, were
like the procession in Turkish dream
er's paradise. They smirked under
their borrowed fnery; they couldn't
help it, poor things. l thought | de-
tected an irresistible tendency to as
sumo to cough on the part of the young
person who had on one of the Camille
costumes; and tiny, brown-eyed
thing, with face full of poetry, but
with her hands redeemed and hardened
by constant toll with the broidery
needle, assumed such tragical air in
one of the sphinx gowns that we bit our
lips to restrain our smiles. All these
dresses for the stage are made of the
very richest and finest materials; and,
Notwithstanding this, it is necessary to
duplicate them when a piece has long
run.
Then there is Nine. Rodrigues, who
dresses the queen of Portugal, and the
duchess of Medina Coeli, and the coun-
tess of Behague, and Mrs. Mackay, and
the countess Potocka "a ravishingly
beautiful lady who adorns the costumes
which she assumes), and the newly
married daughter of President Grevy,
and-so many others! And then the
house of Boyer, where go the French
mammas who wish their daughters to
be absolutely correct and devoid Of &C.
centricity, and where the empress of
Brazil and duchess of Ossuna get their
dresses. Where also the queen of Italy,
and the shy, modest and unwcrldly
Christina of Spain now and then come
for robes ct chifons. This estab-
llshment has a renown which extends
even to Bucharest and Constantine
pie. And what shall we say of La
ferriere, and of Vignon, who was once
sewing woman for Eugene, and has
now become wealthy modiste, or of
Aurelly, or Fremont. or Daucet, or
Pasquier What can be said except
that each OF the personages pretends to
be the arblter of taste, and speaks with
unutterable scorn and m pris of the
styles invented by his or her rivals e
And the sums spent in these shops ?
Who can compute them? 1t is said
that few of the leading actresses of the
capital ever spend less than &c, 900 or
10000 francs on their toilets for new
comedy of high life. These sums are,
OF course, paid blythe ladies' protec-
tors. The theatrical managers do not
bother their heads about them at all.
The New York Herald says edito-
torially: Our Washington dispatches
intimate that Chill and Peru were not
the only South American irons that
Mr.. Blaine had in the fire during his
lncumbency of the state department.
He was also exploiting in Mexico and
Guatemala. There is dispute more
than half century old between these
two states in regard to boundary
line. MI. Blaine, as may be naturally
expected, undertook to settle it. The
great mission in life of the ex-secre-
tary is to settle the disputes of other
Il