West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1883-04-04


and bangles and oraments !?
You knew before YOU saw their
pretty faces, or heard their high
keyed voices in the English tongue,
that these were the American Girls.
While at Baden Baden there was a
German princess, with her young
lady daughter, the fnancee of a
German duke, both ladies of ele-
CANT manners, who wore such sim
pie toilets, made of some gray stuff,
that they We're distinguished only
by their appearance, not their
clothes.
Now, beautiful clothes are beau
tiful, like everything else that
pleases the eye and the taste, if on
ly we do not sacrifice anything to
extravaganza, and ifonly we could
discover the cost is not one of the
laws of artistic taste in dress. And
anything is in bad taste, if it be be-
You'd our means, Many an Ameri-
can. might have learned lesson of
little party l saw last summer on
the Thames.
1t was a rarely beautiful day IN
England, quite gala day on the
Thames river, which was full of
rowboats and little steam boats
which were going up and down.
We were a party of three or four in
a roweoat which had been from
Maidenhead to NARROW, and were
coming down the river, when we
heard from some one that the Prince
and Princess of Wales with their
party were also on the water Just
ahead of us. A few minutes after
this we came to Harley Lock which
was one of the many locks Just on
the river, and as the great gates
shut IN some eight or ten boats to
be lowered in the lock, we found
that our boat had just followed in
behind that of the royal party, and
that during the fifteen minutes
which it would take to lower the
boats. We could get a good look at
them. Evidently the populace
thought SO too, for, by the time the
gates of the lock were shut, there
must have been two or three hun
dred peple along the banks to gaze
at the Prince of Wales and the
Princess Alexandra.
There We're dozen ladies and
| gentlemen in the royal party, and
| the first and most noticeable thing
to our American women, accustom-
ed to our modes of dress, was the
extreme simplicity of the ladies
dresses. both IN the material and
making. The ladies, most of them,
had on cambria dresses, two or three
were Of blue and white cam br:c,
quite dark, which did not look as
| II it cost over a siXpence yard
and coarse straw sailor hats, with a
ribbon round the crown; Princess
Alexandra, who sat most quietly
and modestly under all that fire Of
eyes, had on either foulard or II
Saline, ecru.c color with little dots
and coarse straw bonnet with lit
tie bunch ofscarlet peoples in front,
and simple ribbon which tied it,
There is no city in America in
| which party Of fashionable ladies
and gentlemen would have gone on
amy public excursion 50 plainly
dressed. The ladies would hardly
have had in their ward-robes dress
es SO simple and inexpensive as
those of the Princess and her titled
attendants.
TO the thoughtful there is Il les
son in these things, and the most
Obvious one is that the real digni-
ty of any position lies far above
and beyond the externals. i he
best society we have in America
must long for that fact to be- recog-
nized. and long for that day when
a lady's position will not he reckon
ed by what she can afford to pay at
the eaillinery or dry goods stores
Congwgationalist.