Page:A happy half-century and other essays.djvu/63

 Rh leading attraction was Mrs. Bristow, who represented Queen Nourjahad in the "Garden of Roses." "Draped in all the magnificence of Eastern grandeur, Mrs. Bristow was seated in the larger drawing-room (which was very beautifully fitted up with cushions in the Indian style), smoking her hookah amidst all sorts of the choicest perfumes. Mrs. Bristow was very profuse with otto of roses, drops of which were thrown about the ladies' dresses. The whole house was scented with the delicious fragrance."

The "European Magazine," the "Monthly Museum," all the dim old periodicals published in the early part of the last century for feminine readers, teem with such "society notes." From them, too, we learn that by 1823 turbans of "rainbow striped gauze frosted with gold" were in universal demand; while "black velvet turbans, enormously large, and worn very much on one side," must have given a rakish appearance to stout British matrons. "La Belle Assemblée" describes for us with tender enthusiasm a ravishing turban, "in the Turkish style," worn in the winter of 1823 at the theatre and at evening parties. This masterpiece was of