lorless lips, sallow
skins hide as best they may, and with some excuse, behind powder or
lip-stick; but to rouge a rose--!

=THE COST OF BEING A BRIDESMAID=

With the exception of parasols, or muffs or fans, which are occasionally
carried in place of bouquets and presented by the bride, every article
worn by the bridesmaids, flower girls or pages, although chosen by the
bride, must be paid for by the wearers.

It is perhaps an irrefutable condemnation of the modern wedding display
that many a young girl has had to refuse the joy of being in the wedding
party because a complete bridesmaid outfit costs a sum that parents of
moderate means are quite unable to meet for popular daughters. And it is
seldom that the bride is herself in a position to give six or eight
complete costumes, much as she may want all of her most particular friends
with her on her day of days. Very often a bride tries especially to choose
clothes that will not be expensive, but New York prices are New York
prices, and the chic which is to make the wedding a perfect picture is the
thing of all others that has to be paid for.

Even though one particular girl may be able to dress herself very smartly
in homemade clothes of her own design and making, those same clothes
duplicated eight times seldom turn out well. Why this is so, is a mystery.
When a girl looks smart in inferior clothes, the merit is in her, not in
the clothes--and in a group of six or eight, five or seven will show a
lack of "finish," and the tender-hearted bride who, for the sake of their
purses sends her bridesmaids to an average "little woman" to have their
clothes made, and to a little hat-place around the corner, is apt to have
a rather dowdy little flock fluttering down the aisle in front of her.

=HOW MANY BRIDESMAIDS?=

This question is answered by: How many friends has she whom she has
"always promised" to have with her on that day? Has she a large circle of
intimates or only one or two? Her sister is always maid of honor; if she
has no sister, she chooses her most intimate friend.

A bride may have a veritable procession: eight or ten bridesmaids, a maid
of honor, flower girls and pages. That is, if she follows the English
custom, where every younger relative even including the little boys as
pages, seems always to be brought into a perfect May-pole procession of
ragged ages and sizes.

Or she may have none at all. She almost always has at least one maid, or
matron,