Democratic Sentinel, Volume 16, Number 32, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1892 — A WOMAN’S HANDS. [ARTICLE]

A WOMAN’S HANDS.

She Uses Thein Very DlfTerenUy From the Girl of Sixteen. There is nothing so great an indication of maturity as the way a woman uses her hands. She has outgrown the period when hands and feet seemed only to have been bestowed to continually remind her that she was in possession of. something she positively did not know what to do with, and as a result she took to sitting upon her pedal extremities and awkwardly burying the other obstructive members in the folds of her gown or behind her back when anyone was present. Somehow, even when dressed in her very best for some festive gathering in the neighborhood, the mirror would persistently return a reflection that was very suggestive of hands and feet rather than of u pretty white gown and a smiling, youthful face übove it. In later years before full womanhood was reached, the feet were brought under control, but the hands still needed a handkerchief to hold, a fan to wave or a parasol to carry. They were not easy when empty, but when nt last the bnd blossomed into the lovely rose then at last came rest for the hands. The pretty members could hang listlessly graceful at her side or emphasize with easy gestures her sprightly conversation. The woman of twenty-five had gained the repose that the girl of sixteen lacked, and nowhere is it shown » ore plainly than in the action of the hands, for though in motion they have lost the nervous and hesitating manner that showed the self-conscious-ness of the novice, which in later years is swallowed up in the assurance of a woman of the world. At a masquerade not long ago a plump and pretty woman assumed the costume of the peasant girl. Her little feet, trim ankles and lithe, girlish figure gave everyone the impression that the fair masker was indeed a girl in her first youth, until a gentleman who was watching her attentively, noticed the movement of the pretty childish hands. “She is not a girl,” he cried, “but a woman of twentyfour or five at least,” and thus it proved, for when the masks were removed the peasant girl proved to be a gay young matron nearer thirty than twenty.