But cheap or flimsy materials should never, under any circumstances, be bought, unless the girls can make them up themselves, to wear at home evenings or during the summer, or unless the sewing-maid can do them; the making and trimming cost three times as much as the stuff, which hardly looks nice for three days, while good material pays for good making and wears until one is really tired of being in the same garment. When that feeling comes to us we should lay the dress aside for some months and then take it out again; the rest actually seems to have done the garment good, and we wear it again with pleasure, instead of putting it on each morning with renewed dislike and distaste, as we did before we put it into the wardrobe for the short retirement we advise.
If matrons over forty-five cannot afford to spend very much on their garments, I do most strongly advise them to keep to black and very dark shades of greens and reds; these, however, should be left absolutely alone should there be any tendency to embonpoint, then black must be de rigueur. This seems a little hard, and of course black is to a certain extent uninteresting wear; but we can console ourselves for the fate to which all must come by knowing that we are suitably attired, and that, at all events, we are not making ourselves ridiculous by vying with our daughters about our clothes.
Women are the age they look. I know some of the above-named age who do not look a day more than thirty-five, and they therefore should dress as they please. But the moment age begins to show let us calmly acknowledge that our pretty days are over, and garb ourselves accordingly. We need not be dowdy in these days. Black and dark raiment generally can be made as nice as possible and quite festive-looking; but we should be suitably dressed, and, after all, we don’t want either admiration or attention then from the outside world; we are sure of both at home if we rule rightly and are queen of the only kingdom that is worth having—the beautiful kingdom of Home.
What does anything else matter, if we are still looked upon by our husbands with as much pleasure and admiration as they gave us in those never-to-be-forgotten days of courtship, and if our children consider us nicer, kinder, and wiser than anyone else? To obtain such applause is worth the whole struggle of living to preserve it—any amount of trouble which we can possibly take. Therefore, let all costume themselves suitably—the girl in the prettiest frocks she can possibly afford; the matron quietly, becomingly, and richly; and, above all, let all consider carefully the matching that I so strongly advocate, and let the girl who begins her allowance always keep most correct accounts, showing these and her paid bills when the next quarter is paid, and let her never be too proud to ask her mother’s assistance, especially if she cannot see her way to make both ends meet; but never pass over a debt, and let her see you notice all she spends. It may seem a little inquisitorial, it will really save her endless care and worry if you prevent her in any way you can from getting into a habit of forestalling her income—a habit that, once formed, is one that hardly anyone ever shakes off in after life, try how one will.
The ball-dresses are the garments which try a girl more than anything, the tulle skirts and pretty flounces, which cost so much, getting so soon spoiled and messed; and I think the stock of the first season’s dresses must be helped considerably by the parents, else will the poor girl feel herself worse dressed than anyone else; and that is a small misery that should never be allowed if in any measure it can be avoided. The years from eighteen to twenty-one are undoubtedly the most joyous of any a woman ever has. They are not always the happiest, taking our standard of happiness very high, but they are the brightest, sunniest, and most amusing that the average girl will ever have, more especially if she have been carefully brought up in a good atmosphere and be not tormented with those uncomfortable religious doubts and miserable hankerings after a career and after reforming the world we some of us had such a severe attack of at that age. I personally would not be eighteen again for all the wealth of the Indies. Then, I thought it extremely grand to believe in nothing, to have a gloomy satisfaction in my superior mind, which soared above the old beliefs, and formed a misty religion of my own, which meant nothing and led nowhere, and to indulge in dreadful sarcasms—mentally only (I am thankful to say I did not often utter them)—on the worldly wisdom of those folks who naturally wished their daughters to marry well and turned cold shoulders on the poorest and generally most undeserving of suitors, and I used to stay up until the small hours of the morning (although I was dreadfully sleepy) inditing the most awful verses against the rich and titled folks, whom I naturally thought were fattening on the poor and miserable, and to whom I intended to go on a species of socialistic crusade; and finally in writing a big novel, which used to make me feel very much more intellectual than most of the people I mixed with, and which, after an evening spent among the brightest and first intellects in the world, I used to contemplate savagely, having been made to feel very small, though I would have died rather than confess such a thing—a feeling I did not mean ever to experience again, once that magnum opus was given to the world and people really knew me for the genius I was. Alas! that recognition has never come yet; still, I am very happy without it, and am always doubly thankful my days of craving for worldwide fame have vanished, and that I neither want that nor to believe in anything any more.
I hope, however, there are not many girls as silly as I was then, and as I dare say I should have continued to be had I not married—I, who scorned the idea of the ordinary British matron, and regarded children and household cares with bitter disgust. And during the twenty years I have been a wife, I am always struck with wonder when I remember the imaginative, impulsive thing that was myself so long ago, and try to trace in my present self the miserable, ambitious cynic I fondly hoped was some day going to set the world on fire and blossom out as a new Thackeray or Dickens. Nothing feminine was good enough for me; I meant to beat the men or do nothing at all.
Such a girlhood as that may be of infinite service, and was, but it cannot be called a happy one; still, I think I was the exception, not the rule, therefore I ask that all who can possibly manage it will see their girls are happy as long as they are young; to give them their allowance because they should learn how to spend money, but to add a dress here and there, an ornament, a new trimming judiciously if in any way you can afford it, and go without yourself rather than allow a girl to be shabby or worry herself to death over a wearing-out garment; at the same time let her learn to do her own repairs and have lessons in dressmaking; make her happy, but at the same time let her help herself to the desired end. I hope there may never be too many daughters in the family for this allowance of 50l. to be an impossibility; no girl can dress really on less. If there are, she must be taught early to make her own garments, and she must learn, furthermore, that she must spend far more time and thought over her clothes than is good for her, should the allowance be much less, and should she be obliged to go out into society a good deal. As I stated at first, I am not now writing for the young beginners, but for those whose children are growing up, and who have made and are making a good income; I therefore trust that what I have said about dress will be taken only by those for whom it is intended, the Angelina of ‘From Kitchen to Garret,’ poor dear, having often enough to do without much that she would have thought indispensable in the old days.
CHAPTER VIII.
CHRISTENINGS AND WEDDINGS.
There is a great deal to consider, apart from the mere arrangement of the ceremonies, about the events of which I mean to speak in this chapter, therefore no book devoted to the interests of the home could be complete without at least some words on both subjects.