Middlebury register. (Middlebury, Vt.) 1886-1937, 1888-01-20
eEAUTY IN THE BOXES.
The Lovely Women Who Crowd the
Front Rows I'm the Opera.

The Lovely Women who Crowd the
Front Rows in the Opera.
was at the opera the other night.
Faust was on the bill and the house
was crowded with the beauty and wealth
of the town. Standing up between the
acts l swept the boxes with my opera
glass, and the sheen of the diamonds out
shone the glare of the bright lights. The
white and bare shoulders of the women
rose along the front seats like the tops OF
soft white waves, and their uncovered
arms were as ripples of foam that re-
lieved the bright colors of their costumes.
Clear complexioned, bright eyed and
aggressive in their beauty, many of them
leaned over the front of their boxes and
sent their sparkling eyes careening
through the house. They were lovely
specimens of the feminine form divine,
and the world has not left them in ignor-
ance of that delightful fact.
Take almost any of the boxes and the
story of its occupants lives will point the
moral of the subject that came to me
that night.
Never mind the particular box, but
there was one that drew my attention.
built, cherry Tipped and alabaster skinned.
With faces serene, health perfect, and
contentment marked on every line of
their well cut countenances. They had
swept into their places long after the
performance had begun and gazed about
with superb indifference after throwing
off their wraps.
The well rounded outlines of the old
est of the three, and the repose that ran
through her every motion, marked her
out as woman to whom care was I'M
known, and satisfaction an everyday
romance. She might have been 40. but
she looked 25. The other two were
younger, but both were pictures of alb
solute physical beauty. They were one
family, and may have been mother,
daughter and sister. The three were
magnificent evidences of the develop
ment and culture that are building up
the rich women of New York and Civ
to the new generation that is growing
around us today.
And the husband? for he was there, too.
The wife turns occasionally in care
less, half Indifferent way and says a
word to some one who sits in the rear of
the box, and in the half dimness can be
seen the man whose money makes all this
loneliness possible.
| Is he, too, developing and rounding
out his life in pleasant ways and without
weighing cares? Look at him even in
weight; he is many pounds lighter than
is the magnificent woman he calls wife,
and who glances back at him sometimes
almost pathetically. The burrows along
his cheeks are cut deep and his eyes are
sometimes weary and often heavy, even
when Marguerite sings her sweetest
strains.
The world has been wrestling with him
for quarter of a century, and his office
has seen him every day during all that
| time. He has delved for wealth and he
has found it, but his bent shoulders and
shrunken figure tell the story of the
strained anxiety that has covered his life
for years. Unceasing work during the
day and uncertain rest in the quiet of the
night have laid the mark of 60 years
upon him, though he has not perhaps
touched As.
He has fought for the place in the opera
where his proud wife sits. He has strug-
gled to keep her in the splendor that
BELTS her beauty. He tolls along, hold
ing to his accumulations and lavishing
them upon her, while her loneliness and
stateliness grow with advancing matron-
hood, and the years of middle manhood
bring to him the WEAKNESS and decrepi-
tude of old age.
1t is no fancy sketch. The opera house
was full of such pictures that nights
full of them every night.
True, there are some magnificent spec
linens of stalwart American manhood.
strolling here and there through the lob
bies or lounging in the body of the house.
But then most of these men are unmar-
ried.-New York Graphic.