NICE GIRLS We all know a nice girl the moment we meet her. That one word "nice" rises to our lips instinctively, we can hardly tell why; but it is the only word in the language that can be used under the circumstances, and it is fully expressive. Everyone knows exactly what it means. It does not necessarily mean a beautiful girl, or an elegant or an accomplished girl, except to the extent that beauty, elegance and accomplishments are essential to niceness. Beauty in its more queenly sense the Guenevere style of beauty, for instance-is out of the question. Arthur's guilty consort could not have been "nice." In a sense the nice girl always is, and I think should be, pretty. Yes; she ought to have nice features-a pure, clear face it should be; and she is certain to have nice eyes. No matter for the colour; let them be blue, or hazel, or black; and, again, let them be large or small but they are certain to have an expression about them absolutely charming. They will be kind eyes, sympathetic eyes, ready to brighten at another's happiness, and to grow brighter still with "tears that leave the lashes bright" over another's sorrowings. The nice girl is sure to have a pretty mouth, too. There is a secret about pretty mouths. It is more valuable than any of Madame Rachel's secrets as an "aid to beauty," and so is worth finding out. The secret is this: the mouth is of all the features that least under the control of the will. It is the truest index to the disposition. Eyes may gleam; smiles may dimple the cheeks; amiability may be simulated with infinite skill; but the mouth is less obliging than the "hollow hearts" of the poet. It will not "wear a mask ;" and it is only by cultivating sweetness of disposition that a pretty mouth can be secured. The nice girl unconsciously finds out this secret, and with a sweet mouth and kind eyes she may be content: she has beauty enough. The great charm about the nice girl is, that she is so good-tempered -which is a synonym for good-hearted-so amiable, so cheerful, and so clever, in the best sense of that word. She is the life and soul of home. Her presence is its sunshine. She makes it. She is indispensable to it. Says the Fairy in the Christmas tale, speaking of such a girl in humble life, "The hearth which, but for her, were only a few stones and bricks and rusty bars, is made through her the altar of the home." The same thing happens in higher circles, for the nice girl is found everywhere. One thing to be noted of her is, that she is always neat. You cannot surprise her en déshabillé. What a marvellous smoothness of hair she has! And what immaculate cuffs and collars, warranted never to rumple or soil! It is difficult to believe that her dresses are made: their fit is perfection, and they seem as natural to her as leaves to a flower. There is always a graceful flow about them; and as for colour, she has an artist's instincts in respect to it. She uses a bright ribbon as a painter would do, but without knowing why. A poem might be written on a nice girl's boots. They are never of the showy kind; but how charming! Gloves, again; it doesn't matter whether Jouvin, Houbigant, Piver, or some unknown Brown or Jones supplies them. They are always perfection in fit, and, as a rule, of some neutral tint. Catch our nice girl appearing on the croquet-lawn in gloves of positive yellow, or green, or, most hideous of all, red-that latest outrage on good taste! The influence of the nice girl in a house is always felt, but it is not easy to say how it is exercised. Part of the secret is, I fancy, that she is everywhere attended by two fairies, who are called Order and Grace. Their aid is invaluable. Wherever she goes, tidiness and neatness result. Her touch has a magic in it. She could not be slovenly if she tried. It would be impossible for her to arrange a flower, place a chair, loop up a curtain, or perform the commonest act of daily life in any but the right way. Dickens had a nice girl in his mind when he drew Ruth Pinch, and who can forget the charm with which Ruth invested that most homely of occupations, the making of a meatpudding? It is by no means necessary that the nice girl should be simply domestic: but she is sure to prize her home and to be of use in it. Always gay, busy, and cheerful, happy in herself and devoted to those about her, she misses none of the refinements or genuine pleasures of life. She knows all about the new poet and the last novel, the Opera favourites and the popular play. She knows something of pictures, can sing a little and play fairly, but is not much given to those manipulated fireworks under cover of which everybody talks till the coda ceases, and murmurs of "Thank you!" express the general gratitude for what nobody has heard. Of course the nice girl dances, is clever at charades, and is the idol of the youngsters by reason of her profound erudition in the matter of fairy-tales and nursery rhymes, and the inexhaustible fertility of her resources when games and forfeits are in demand. In addition to these qualifications, she is, in all probability, a fair horsewoman, can skate, has learned to swim at the seaside, and perhaps, out of fondness for a brother, has mastered the difficult problem of the cricket-field so far as to watch his exploits therein with an appreciative eye. It is peculiarly pleasant to think of the nice girl in the sick-room. Leigh Hunt wrote a paper on the pleasures of being ill. Not very ill, you know; but sufficiently so to warrant you in keeping to the house, and having people concerned and interested about you. He rated it as one of the pleasures of life. This at least may be conceded, that it goes far to take it out of the category of the miseries of life when our pet is there, ready and willing to attend on us with loving devotion and unwearying patience. She is never afraid, never fatigued. Her footstep is not heard, her dress has no irritating rustle in it. She does not talk to you overmuch, nor fidget you with suggestions or fussy attentions. An invalid suffers as much from being over-nursed as from neglect. She sees that you want for nothing, but conceals from you how your wants are supplied. At your lowest, she inspires you with confidence: as you mend, her cheerfulness sustains you, and one look at her bright face is like a glimpse of heaven. Universally attractive as they are, how is it that nice girls are so rare? They seem never to have been plentiful. Even the poets give us few records of any. Sweet Anne Page, I imagine, was one. So was the heroine of Suckling's "Ballad upon a Wedding," I like to think. That must have been a nice girl in youth, of whom it was said by a poet that to know her was a liberal education—the sweetest compliment ever paid to woman! But it will not do to venture into this suggestive field and dip into other poets, because after the poets would come the novelists, and in the discussion of their heroines we should get beyond all bounds. But Edgar Poe has eight lines addressed to Frances Osgood, which so strongly indicate that she was one of this rare order, and at the same time so tersely express all the feelings one would desire to convey to a nice girl, that I will venture to quote them: "Wouldst thou be loved? Then let thy heart From its present pathway part not! Thy grace, thy more than beauty, And love-a simple duty." To revert to our point: how is it that nice girls always have been, and now are, so rare? Is it because heart is so much rarer than beauty? Or is there some delusion in the female breast as to what men admire in women, that leads so many to assume airs, to be haughty and unfeminine, or to sink into the slough of fastness? Other reasons may be assigned, but probably the truth will never be arrived at. This, however, is not to be gainsaid, that nice girls bear no proportion whatever to those whose general bearing might be held to justify the great Hazlitt in his extraordinary views of the gentler sex. It is recorded of him that when introduced to some young girls, "they neither laughed nor sneered, nor giggled nor whispered: but they were young girls. So he sat and frowned, blacker and blacker, indignant that there should be such things as youth and beauty, till he went away before supper in perfect misery, and owned he could not bear young girls they drove him mad." One would like to feel certain that these could not have been nice girls. WILLIAM SAWYER. IN THE FIRELIGHT Dream THEY all had gone to bed but me, and I sat by the fire, And as I dozed, a bygone dream came stealing through my brain, I saw the chateau-garden, and that tender tearful face; And there came a clash of angry drums, and a crimson glare and gleam; A white badge on each rider's arm, and a cross on every breast. As through the burning gateways stormed-in the Popish hordes; I marked the stern queen-mother-malignant, cold, and proud— Fires from the Louvre window at the wretches as they run. Then passed away these murdering bands, and skies grew blue again- W. T. |