Democratic Sentinel, Volume 17, Number 20, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 2 June 1893 — GAY GOTHAM GOSSIP. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GAY GOTHAM GOSSIP.

THE VERY LATEST THING IN FASHIONS. Housemaid* Should Be Dressed to Match the Mistress and Her Room—Handsome Suits for Little Boy* and Girls—Mothers' Promenade Costume. Modes for the Month. New York correspondence:

E N you dress p® 7your little housegflSf maid to match Splfw yourself and your tbmM room, particularly the latter, you merely oonform to fir present rules. It K is the fashion to \ have a half-grown \i girl as a constant -tf'N attendant on the boudoir. She is always gowned in chintz or some

other stiff wash goods. Her skirt is full and plain, except for a row of tucks, and reaches only just below the tops of her shoes. The bodice is plain and cut out about the neck and short at the sleeves to show a ohemisetteof spotless white, and undersleeves of the same. She also wears a little lace cap, with a bow to matoh the dress, and an apron of very fine white stuff, run through with ribbons. The girl must be of the quietest manners, and nothing in her carriage or expression must emphasize the soubrette effeot of her dressing. If you are a blonde your little maid will dress in blue. If you are a brunette she will wear pink and soarlet, or buff. It makes no difference at all what she is. Of course, your room is furnishod according to a color scheme that match* es you, and the little maid becomes part of this. Such a maid is a pretty accessory to an afternoon tea. Dress her to match the cups. The effeot is very pretty when she hands them around. For the street, of course, she wears a

sort of uniform of plain dark serge with a long cloak, the dress a little longer than that worn In the bouse. The same Idea is carried out for the nurse maid. Have a young girl, If possible, dressed as always best becomes the child, and always in stiffly laundried goods for the house, and in dark serge lor the street. On the street the girl should wear a special cap and a stiff long white apron. In the house her apron will be larger and stlffer than the other maid wears. An japron then Is part of a maid’s dress at all times, and It Is, too, an Important feature of the wardrobe of the little ones she attends. Two dainty models are shown In the first picture. That worn by the little one who Is seated shows her taste in dress to be more correct than her ideas of comfort, for she has made herself, in her estimation, much more comfortable by sitting on her foot. The material of her apron is white batiste, and It Is cut square at the neck. It is shirred several times and then hangs to the bottom of the dress, where it has a deep hem and above the latter are six tucks in pairs. It fastens behind with three buttons. The tiny sleeves have a drawstring of white ribbon and a shoulder strap edged with embroidery, laid in a double box-pleat in the center and trimmed with ribbons put on lengthwise and finished at each end with rosettes of baby ribbon. The other is made in Empire form of batiste. It is < at square at the neck and is trimmed with three rows of insertion, each row separated or marked with pink or blue baby ribbon and finished at the top and bottom with a ruf-

fle of embroidery. It is alike back and front and buttons behind. There is one row of insertion over the shoulders and then the ruffle. The small puffed sleeves are finished with insertion and ruffle of embroidery. The apron is

pleated to the square neckband in the manner indicated in the illustration, and the bottom has a deep hem and seven tucks. This sturdy little fellow wears what is as near to the Lord Fauntleroy costumes of several years ago as fashion now permits Theso Fauntleroy clothes are still -dear, to almost every mother'a heart who has a boy „he ago of the little lord, no matter how unlike him the boy may be in other ways. The average small boy, however, has a deadly hatred for the Fauntleroy get-up, and is never further from doing the appropriate “dearest" than when his ma insists on getting him into the togs. If one thing

about the suit is more odious than another it is the sash. If you dispense with that you may bo able to fool the boy into a velvet Jacket and knee trousers, ospecailly if you will add a sailor suit. This has the wide Bailor collar turning away to show a supposed “guernsey” beneath which comes about the throat loosely. The more this undor piece looks like an undershirt, the better the boy likes it and the less the mother approves. Let it bo of fine flannel, or knit, like the bigger boys’ "sweaters," and either white or yellowish, and the small boy will allow it to be embroidered about the edge with colored silk and permit the sailor shirt to be worn over it to be of fine silk, either whiteorillght-blue. With the wide collar of this coming over the shoulders of the volvet jacket and with the blessed short trousers fitting over a sturdy pair of legs, the mother is a happy one, especially if she hus saved the long curls from the harbor. If you can koep the boy’s mind on the Bailor shirt, you may prevent him from assuming the ferocious expression of undying hate and rage that has oome to beaßsoolated with the sturdy fuce of the American Fauntleroy when, as he says, he is "rigged out" like a girl with a sash. Never will your boy be quite so satisfactory to dress as he is when about 5 years old. In just a little while everything will be changed and your baby will be a big, ugly fellow who wants his clothes made by his father’s tailor. Don’t think of that now, but keep him in kilts as long as you can. Blessed

little kilts, that come Just barely to the sturdy dimpled knees that will be a little grimy no matter how you try to prevent it. Over this a loose silk or cashmere blouse, white or light-blue, with a sailor collar of dark-blue, to match the kilt, Is worn, and a white knit piece shows inside the widely turned-over collar. There is a sal lor-knotted handkerchief and a bo’s’n’s whistle at the end of a white cord. To be sure, it is rather a mix up of mountain and sea, the Highland bare knees and the sailor shirt and loose cap, but, oh, the dear he is in it! Sturdy, stocky, and handsome, with his hair blowing about his brown cheeks, and with a way of standing that makes one’s heart go right out to him! To think that he is getting so proui that he objects to being gathered up into hungry arras, becoming so ambitious that the first thing you know he is taking advantage of you by actually taking off the kilt and trotting around with bare knees and in trousers which are, of course, of the same stuff as the kilt and meant to be hidden by it. That is what many a mother has caught her boy at before he was out of the kindergarten. Time Hies! Get your boy into kilts as soon as possible, that his ambition may not cut short the year when he looks so well in them. Once he Is into trousers the “little boy” is gone. A sailor suit for a boy from 8 to 11 years of age is shown in the last picture. The blouse has an elastic In the bottom and closes beneath a box-pleat in front. The wide collar is pointed in i front but square in the back, and is made of pale-blue cloth. Around the edge is a gilt braid. Blouse and trousers are of dark-blue cheviot. Copyright, now. '

APRONED DRESSILY.

MODIFIED FAUNTLEROY.

HIGHLAND SAILOR LADDIE.

MOTHER AND SON WELL CLAD.