Rock Island daily Argus. (Rock Island, Ill.) 1886-1893, 1893-01-16
BRINGING OUT A BUD.
COST OF HER OUTFIT, WITH ITS
DRESSES AND ORNAMENTS.


Almost Innumerable Gowns.
Some years ago wrote about the man.
ner in which Fifth avenue family of my
| acquaintance kept it's oldest daughter what
| you might call satin lined and cotton p.t-
| tinged with luxury, like bit of exceed
| ingly delicate jewelry in its case. Now |
want to tell little, just the veriest trifle,
that l have happened to hear about the
| manner in which that young lady's sister
is being got ready for what is called her
debut" In society. AS l remember the
story of the surroundings Of her sister,
whose marriage made great stir about
two years ago and who is now wrapped ND
in a little baby of her own, there was moth
ing more extraordinary than that she lived
in great comfort and had nearly everything
that she wanted-a French maid, / remem-
Der, and great closets full of dresses and
bureaus full OF linen, and very pretty
| bedroom which, by an odd chance, hap
pened 20 be called into for moment when
she WIS away
The most striking things in that room, as
| remember it, were the great cheval glass
in which she viewed the effects of her dra-
peries and the ''set" of her skirts, and a
pretty rosewood 'predieu," with an ivory
and silver covered prayer book on its shelf,
on which she knelt to say her probably
| commonplace prayers every night and
morning. 1t strikes me now, though did
not think of it then, that perhaps not so
! many persons would slight their prayers if
they had pretty rosewood contraption.
with cushioned shelf for their knees, star
ing them in the face and getting in the way
OF their feet every time they dressed and
undressed-robed and disrobed I mean, of
course.
But now she considers herself an old mar
ried woman, and may even have French
| novels to read and to hide when the younger
one visits her And she and her mother are
Just now very busy in preparing to usher
| the younger girl into the giddy whirl of So
ciety, in which all the older ones spend their
ornamental lives. had never thought of
it before, and | wonder now many of my
readers have ever considered what it means
to bring out" such girl. OF course |
knew that some one gave a party-a mother
OF aunt or sister-and that the bad" or
debUtapte had to be well dressed for the oc-
| casion, but gracious sakes! as any fashion
able woman would say who reads this, the
dress for that one night is nothing at all
Well, not exactly nothing at all either for
have heard that it cost more than 500,
and the ten dollar handkerchief that she
will wear that night is now having seven
dollars worth of lace sewed on it.
The shoes, the silk stockings, the orna-
ments for her hair, the stickpins for her
corsage and the exquisite linen which will
intervene between her dress and her person
are all of the finest, and cost a lump sum of
hundreds Of dollars. So it does cost some
thing, after all-that and the order at Sher-
rvs for supper for sixty, and at the florists
for literal banks of flowers And her little
cousin, who lives with her and is to be
present at the installation of the belle, is TO
be dressed, it seems, within what I would
call an inch of her life
But that coming out night figures very
lightly in the cost of the occasion. This
young lady has been in the hands of sew
eral dressmakers for more than a month,
and has nearly two dozen new dresses un-
der way. When l heard that | remarked
that had not remembered that she was in
short dresses and needed a rev set vas
laughed u for that. Bless you" said her
father who WAS my informant, "she wears
dresses as long as her mothers and has
done so for long time" What she is
having now, it seems, are dresses of kind
she never needed before-dresses for public
and social functions, from which she used
to be barred when she was merely a girl.
Among these Few gowns are theater
dresses, opera dresses and cloaks, tea
gowns, dinner dresses and dancing and re-
ception dresses
As rule she has to have bonnet to
match every dress and shoes and stockings
that accord with the evening dresses \
half dozen new wraps, some of them
from Paris like one or two OF the dresses,
are in the list that this irreverc,t father
ratified off to me when he found that was
interested. and even these are but the big
ger things.
The number OF fans, and the abundance
OF gloves, an'' the cost and delicacy of two
score Of the handkerchiefs, and the hairpins
and pocket Oks and purses. the slippers
and the umbrellas that he mentioned
seemed to me beyond all reason and beyond
the calculation Of "A man of modest figures.
The father d J not pretend to know much
about the mI'ter and said he Guessed he
had not told me Of scme of the important
things. "W"N, said !. Iii sounds to me rs
if you had adopted a Eotteutot girl with a
palm leaf for trousscau and were TRYING to
dress her for season at Newport" Aud
that is how ! does seem
This young woman is also TO enjoy the
dignity Of laid-a real French one. who
was engaged in Paris by IA New York lady
of her acqu ntance, who thus would have
caused two continents 70 feel interested in
the great event had not the purchase of
dresses in Paris disturbed that side Of the
globe beforehand. She is also to have q
carriage and horses that She is to call her
own and order sent around whenever she
wants them, instead OF asking her mamma
for the loan Of that lady's cquipage once in
awhile Mt the most inopportune times, as
am Informed she has been doing of late
1t Is all very strange to me, but ! must
say 1t seems equally natural to my rich
friends Poor Richard gave the advice
"Associate with the wealthy, for man is
often mistaken for the company he keeps.'
or words of mat import ] do not either
follow or like his advice / have rich
friends and some that | like and admire
very much, but not all such are comforta
bic company for poor man Not that the
sensation OF every man enters into the mat
ter, FOR it does not with me, but the only
sense of inequality that some of US cannot
overcome fOr5-et IL MT xx-L;,t,