Our Daily Paths! with thorns or flow'rs We can at will bestrew them; What bliss would gild the passing hours, If we but rightly knew them! The way of life is rough at best, But briers yield the roses, So that which leads to joy and rest The hardest path discloses.
The weeds that oft we cast away, Their simple beauty scorning, Would form a wreath of purest ray And prove the best adorning. So in our daily paths, 'twere well To call each gift a treasure, However slight, where love can dwell With life-renewing pleasure!
WE promised, in speaking of new caps, a paragraph in our fashion chat on laces; but, as that has its own material, in discussing the merits of shapes and styles, we lay our laces upon the centre-table instead.
We have now in preparation some very new and tasteful designs for chemisettes, to be worn in mourning, every one understanding that embroideries are laid aside with a black dress. For the strictest styles, plain linen, cambric, and Swiss muslin are worn; but when silks or fringed dresses are put on, fluted ruffles, edged with plain narrow lace, on collars and open sleeves, are not out of taste, or edges of needle-work in scallops and points.
Laces, or very thin muslin embroidery, will be worn this summer; cambric, whether plain or embroidered, being seen only in morning-dress. We speak to those who "dress for dinner." There is a new style of lace, the Maltese, which is very heavy and apparently durable, somewhat resembling Honiton, at about half its cost. It is very pretty for caps, as seen in our design for the month. Heavy laces are still in vogue; Valenciennes and the still more delicate and lady-like Mechlin have given place to them. There is an Irish point occasionally to be met with, the most durable of all, being of the purest linen thread. Collars, or chemisettes, and undersleeves are worn to match. Nothing is more untidy--save soiled muslins--than to see cambric sleeves and a rich lace collar, or muslin sleeves and English flouncing for a chemisette. Better to have both of plain cambric or linen.
THE truthfulness of the "Washing-Day" song, with its disagreeable effects on the spirits and temper, has never been questioned or doubted. For ourselves, our spirits fall with the first rising of steam from the kitchen, and only reach a natural temperature when the clothes are neatly folded in the ironing-basket. If any of our club sympathize with us, they will rejoice that a better day is at hand, and consider the invention described below as full of the deepest interest to our sex as housekeepers. The one thus commented on is in use in the St. Nicholas Hotel, New York:--