Courier Democrat

INFLUENCE OF CLOTHES.
Wearing One's Best When Visiting the Poor and Sick.

Lenten frocks of purple and heliotrope for church-going mission-visiting and good work generally, are being made for the consistent and conscientious woman, says the New York Commercial Advertiser.
Simplicity and demureness characterize these gowns as a rule, and the clinging, graceful, soft fabrics, such as nun's veiling, cashmere and canvas are chosen rather than the more aggressive and worldly cloths or rustling materials. One good soul whose Lenten duties take varied forms has what she calls her "hospital dress." This she wears to readings and recitals and lectures on Greek art and psychological phenomena, as well as to the wards where the children wait her coming as eagerly as flowers long for the sun. "I don't believe in the old-time philanthropist in a little gray bonnet and a black shawl," says this Lent lily.

"I think poor people and 'shut-ins' are more observing and more appreciative than people who bustle about in the world, and I know that they love pretty clothes and are pleased to think one puts on her very best to go to see them. One small girl at the post graduate always 'sizes me up' with her big blue eyes the minute I enter the ward. Then, when I sit beside her bed to talk to her, she smiles and strokes my muff, plays with the charms on my chatelaine and tells me how pretty I look, how much nicer this bonnet is than the one I wore last week and other bits of information that she has probably been cogitating on and storing up for days. It makes me wary, I assure you, and if I am not as smart as usual I fairly quake before the scrutiny of the blue-eyed one who loves visitors, but, above all, smartly dressed visitors.

"My girls, like their mother, have not much money to spend, so they try to give time and energy instead. One of them teaches a class of little barbarians how to sew and the other has a kindergarten catechism class. The girls are both in their teens and I fear neither of them has the gift of teaching, so I discreetly avoid questions about the progress the children are making in sewing or religion; but I do know that the little heathens of Hester street think Pollie a sort of well-dressed angel, who is a fair teller of stories, and Nell tells as a good joke that the Saturday morning following the day on which she wore her fox boa for the first time, the attendance of her class was about one-third as large again as it had been before.

"The observing pupils had told the neighborhood how the teacher had let Teresa Giovanetti wear the wild beast around her neck because her hem-stitching was well done. Poor Nell had her hands full that morning between her efforts to teach the increased number and her anxiety for her precious boa, that was being 'walked' around the room, one child holding its head and one its tail, letting the legs claw along the floor. She decided to make a virtue of necessity and a Lenten sacrifice of the boa. It became the plaything of the class, but aided Nell's efforts to maintain order; at the first threat to take the fox away from them the children became as submissive as a class of cherubs.

"Dress is a great thing when people are to be cheered and heartened mentally as well as physically. A chatelaine and a pretty hat, a fashionable frock and a big muff will sometimes interest and amuse a suffering child as much as a picture book and flatter and please a poor old soul shut away from the poetic and stereotyped bunch of flowers or bundle of tracts."