The Montgomery advertiser., 1903-09-23
THE DEAR GIRL FROM DIXIE.
She Easily Identified in New York, Even the Shop Girl Falls Captive
 to Her Voice and Ways.

I Even the Shop Girl Falls Captive to Her Voice and Ways.
 New York Mail and Express.
 | If you station yourself near the corner of Fifth Avenue and Twenty-third Street nowadays you can take notes on the | Southern woman as she passes on her way to the shops. At the close of Au- gust she begins to show herself, and all through September and October she fiocks 1 to town.
 You can tell her at a glance, for she is very different from her Western sister, | who appears and vanishes about the same time. The Western woman scurries by you with a quick, assertive step and | a breezy air of self-reliance that stiffens your backbone at once and tones up your energies. She leaves the air behind her vibrating with the whir of twisted R-r's, and has gone before you realize she was | there.
 The Southern woman approaches and passes. seemingly not of her own volition. but as if she were waited by some fickle zephyr-swerving here and there and drifting calmly on without much idea of l her destination.
 She Is not a bit "smart"-certainly not in the trim brisk way of Northern wo- | men, but there is a certain charm and l artless grace in her half-conscious way of going along. A Northern girl, or Western one, knows where she is going and exactly how much time she has to spend in getting there. but the one from Dixie knows only that she is in New York-and that is enough.
 Time is the one thing she Is rich in, and she spends 1t with superb ostenta- ton. Watch her as she fingers around the stand of a street flower vender and prices his wares in a sweet, cooing way | 1,,ito man bustles up and demands a dozen Jacks" in a quick. staccato, and the l flower man is on the jump to supply them. The Southern girl was without impatience. interests herself in other mat ters, and looks wonderingly after the brisk woman. who is off again in an in- stant, "Jacks' in hand, and disappearing in the distance.
 l After she manages to learn the price | of all his fowers-interrupted at least six times by the arrival and departure of | other customers-she sweetly confides to the flower man that she really loves | violets better than any other flowers in the world, but she thinks she had better content herself with a few carnations since they are so much cheaper. She | stops to thank him when he hands them to her and makes the change and pauses again ere she takes her leave, to make | some gracious parting remark upon his | "beyeau-tiful flowers"
 She Is slight of figure. airy and grace full, but she is seldom handsome or stunning" She is not full-blooded, lusty and athletic, with glowing color and dazzling vitality, but she is often beau tiful, with an exquisite deiicacy of feature and form-and always sweet. There Is a kind of wofnanly helplessness about her which in some subtle, fiattering way strikes at the heart and makes her dear. The attitude of leaning without the weight is her secret.
 Seen here. in the drive and swirl of trade, she cuts a half funny, half pitt full little figure. Her love of prettiness tempts her to indulge too freely in fuffs and fixings. She belongs to the ball room. the moonlit piazza, the tree- shadowed avenue, but not to streets and cities And yet she is here to take notes of the new styles, to glean ideas at shop windows and to remodel herself. so that before many days in town she succeeds in looking striklngly like every one else.
 The shop girl halls her approach with a smile and sigh. Successive autumns have taught her to know the Southern girl. She knows that the clock will go on the even tenor of its way, ticking off seconds and hours while she waits upon her, answers her questions, listens to her condolences and gives her sympathetic advice about her purchases. Before they part real affection has sprung up be- tween them. The Southern woman is so earnest so devout in her appreciation of dry goods, so intent upon stretching her silver dollars far and fine to compass her fond longings and so eager to learn wis dom out of the mouth of the shop girl! She Is as troublesome as she is lovable
 So the shop girl replaces and refolds goods that she has piled up before her
 
 her. She is very patient, but she snaps at the next conner to her counter, who is perhaps gilded shopper. with an easy indifference as to price, giving an order for cloth of gold.
 But with all of her ambles among dry goods and millinery. the Southern girl buys astonishingly little. She selects her favorite hats and learns their price, but never buys before locking herself in her room and losing herself in prayer and meditation. By dint of much moving about and many inquiries, she discovers a tailor who puts her into modish uniform at a ridiculously small price. Then she goes a wrap" hunting, keeping on the scent for days before she comes to a compromise between her fancy and her pocketbook.
 When the necessities are secured and
 theatre tickets allowed for. the pocket
 book Is turned inside out and squeezed for the airy trifies of her toilet, which are her dearest delights. She goes back
 home with every nook and crevice of her
 trunk brlmmed and flowing over with
 remnants of ribons, lace. embroideries. passementerie, and every sort of gay junk imaginable. Her pretty head Is quite as tightly packed with schemes for
 conjuring new bonnets and hats, stocks,
 collarettes and the thousand dress &C.,
 cessorles she loves out of the chaos of gewgaws she as accumulated When she returns to her own home she P shuts herself in a chrysalis. and by the
 assistance of negro sewing woman who
 works at her home, under her direction, for the consideration of 50 or 75 cents a day, she is shortly transformed into a } butterfly of fashion, and flutters forth
 in her splendor. greeted by an admirlns
 chorus of "Ohs!" and "Ahs!' from her 2 friends.
 |: OPPOSITION TO MIR. SHAW. = narIinaa r., Re Candidate for Meth