St. Paul daily globe. [volume] (Saint Paul, Minn.) 1884-1896, 1886-03-21
LENTEN DISSIPATION.
New Workers Who MingIe Pleasure
with DeVouIness.

WIN DeVOutnesS.
New YORK, Feb. 16.-Dear Grace: When
you get this it Will be Lent, but while it is
on Its way TO you / shall be enjoying the
dying agonies Of the season. But Grace. il
Is the fashion here 10 organize a regular
system of Lenten festivities, which papa
calls whipping the devil around the stump.
1t is true that among a certain set there is
KIND OF picturesque religious dissipation
observed during Lent that is not without its
charms 10 even the worldly-minded. What
would you think of set of girls who reg
ularly attend the afternoon services of the
fashionable Episcopal church. wearing long
brown serge clOaks and dTeadfully becoming
Quaker bonnets, carrying big prayer books
IN their hands, which are demurely folded
In their large, hanging sleeves? Ny dear,
would you call that pious cOquetry or
CoQUETTISH PIETY?
Mind, l don't object to it. Ny creed is
that woman ought always and every
where try to look her best, and when am
on my death-bed may be found. like Mrs.
Skewton, intent on the pink satin bed. cur
tains-but you ought to see how shocked.
surprised. mortified and injured those girls
are when limited to them that they were
playing little part. i don't 90 10 church
do go l don't go en- grande tenue. cos
tuned for the occasion. Then the Easter
combinations! Oh, Grace. Gracel Some
OF the confirmation gowns are too charming
for anything-soft, clinging white cash
meres made like Marguerite's gown i'm the
first act of Faust" The pOstuteStants
who wear these are very young girls. not
more than 10. did hear of one who is Il,
and is to be confirmed this Easter, and
wasn't confirmed last Easter because her
confirmation frock didn't come home in
time. Now, don't vOuch for this story,
but when it was told nobody laughed but
me. During lent New Workers get up rid
ing clubs, sewing circles, badmintOn clubs
everything you can think of to get
through with the six weeks before Easter.
One party OF six matrons has organized
A BREAKFAsT CLUB.
Once week during Lent they are to
breakfast together at each house i'm turn.
and the hostess is 10 furnish some form of
amusement not too amusing, Just decorOuSly
funny. Morning concerts, piano recitals,
courses of lectures and other staid diver
sions are in order now for the girls who
tread the may and the men who quaff the
rosy. think it an excellent plan myself
To diversity life. Let one dance and be
wildly gay for six weeks, and then, for a
change, stop dancing and take up another
paStime. Only there is a mixture of secular
religion, kind OF piety like that of the
Rev. Cream-Cheese. combined with it all
that disgusts me, Why do they make any
pretense of piety sometimes ask. and no.
body can tell me. You will remind me.
like the storybooks do, that one must take
the bad with the good. but that is one of
the fundamental laws of the universe that [
nh 10 \
proved in one respect. 1t is not so abso-
lutely given over TO the consideration of
spring toilets as it used 10 be. New York
ers, you must know, do all their gorgeous
dressing in the winter. AS for the huge
SaratOgas that were taken to watering
places, and the
NUMBERLEss COSTUMES
that were thought 10 give style and fashion,
ali that is dead. and buried. Among people
of the best form the rule is to have magni T.
icent party and dinner clothes. but for the
summer at their Newport or Bar Harbor
cottages, or if they 90 to Europe, TO wear
the plainest things they can get-faultle IS.
OF course, in cut and finish. but anythi ng
but grand and gaudy. The idea is. that be e.
ing surfeited with luxury in their ow n
homes. they require change TO compara-
tive simplicity when they go away. All
eiAio oBpSoAo W NollGtiC ecilSt, 10 saw
nothing of my f0ndness for the pomps and
vanities, and admire, as everybody must.
the order and perfection of life which is
creeping In among the best society i'm New
York. But being so good. wish it were a
little better, little honester, little more
sincere. For example. / like crest when
it has antiquity and genuineneSs to back it.
but when girl whose father was in the
wholesale hardware business sets up armor-
ial bearings as if she were Plantagenet or
a Montmorency, it strikes my funny bone.
Papa, who is not half fool, has such good
ideas on the subject. He cuts me of when
ever try 10 do little mild blowing about
eXcluSiveneSs and aristocracy. and my Vir-
ginian-whO still eXists-says he keeps his
ancestors in the background until he has
made some money on which he can decently
exhibit them, and then he will be able TO do
without them.-Maud in Chicago News.