[Musical Department-under the care of Prof. J. A. GETZE, Philadelphia.] THE GUARDS' WALTZ. BY J. BELLAK. Furnished for THE LADY'S FRIEND, by Messrs. LEE & WALKER, 722 Chestnut Street, Philadelphia. [Entered according to Aat of Congress, A. D. 1866, by LEE & WALKER, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.] THE "SAC" JACKET.-Short loose jackets, called "Sac" in France, have definitely superseded the demi-ajustes of the last three years. This is the only fashion about which, even up to the present moment, there appears to be any certainty, for whether long or short skirts are to carry the day, or whether bonnets are to continue mere fanciful head-dresses to diverge into mantilles, or to regain their former dimensions, is all a matter of doubt and speculation. The short loose jackets are, however, decidedly in vogue. The above represents such a covering, intended for driving only, and to be worn with a hat, as those jackets which are cut close and high to the throat are not always becoming to stout figures, when a hat is worn instead of a bonnet. The material is rough, curly, black and white cloth, and the trimmings consist of black and white mohair cord; the buttons are jet, with white centres, and are of formidable dimensions. The jacket turns back in front, with revers, and a striped black and white Garibaldi bodice with an all-round collar and a colored necktie are worn underneath. A LOW BODICE, WITH EMPIRE BERTHE.-This pattern is the model on which many Parisian ball dresses, are cut. It is divided into five pieces: Numbers 1 and 2, the front, which consists of two distinct pieces an account of the bodice being made without pleats; these two pieces are, therefore, sewn together their entire length from the waist to the top. 3 Side piece. 4 Back which joins the side piece. 5 Berthe. This small "Empire" berthe is intended to be composed of tulle buillonnés, which terminate with either narrow blonde edging, or fringe. The bodice is completed with a deep waistband, which is fastened at the back with a rosette and two long ends. THE LADY'S FRIEND. VOL. IV.] PHILADELPHIA, APRIL, 1867. [No. 4. THE SIBYL'S CAVE. CHAPTER I. BY DICE PRESTON. Don't ask me," said Wendeline, shrugging her pretty shoulders and pursing her firm mouth; "I am willing to do what eyes and fingers may for our poor soldiers, but to set myself up in a market-place and be gazed at, oh, Dora! it's a little too much!" "But, dear, you'll be in a tent, far enough from | peeping eyes. Why, a Sibyl, after all, is'nt half so much exposed as a table-girl or a post-mistress. Come, Wendeline, don't say nay again; for if you give up the character, you very well know there's not another who can take it. Remember, it's to help along the Fair, and the Fair is for the soldiers!" "Capital! we've roused her; she'll do it," cried the girls, gleefully; for they had faith in Wendeline's resources. They knew that whatever she undertook would be a success. She had that combination of qualities which they call genius, and was considered almost infallible. She was a tall, slender young lady of eighteen, with little permanent and decided beauty, but with marvellous possibilities. She was like a fitful, uncertain light, which her companions had predicted she would. Having pnce cast aside, from motives of real patriotism, her sensitive scruples, she had thrown her whole soul into her costume, and made of it something unique and effective. She was not a Cassandra, a Nemesis, or a common gypsy; she was rather a bright, wandering comet of the sibylline genus, without law or orbit. She chose to dress like an eastern princess of olden time, and her semi-barbaric robes were magnificent enough for the Queen of Sheba. She wore a scarlet silk bodice, with a stomacher of black velvet, embroidered with gold, a skirt of green velvet, reaching half-way to the ankle, Turkish drawers of scarlet silk, and slippers of the same brilliant dye, wrought with gold. About her waist was fastened a narrow scarf, in the folds of which rested an ornamented dagger. On her slender neck hung a resplendent diamond necklace; in her raven hair flashed jewels, clustered like stars; and on her white arms and hands glittered bracelets and rings of priceless value. The girls led her into the dressing-room, threw off the disguising cloak, and clapped their hands as the figure of the royal Sibyl stood revealed. "Was ever anything so magnificent? Where did she find such stores of jewelry? Wasn't she a darling for goodness, and a genius for contrivance? How the money would rain into the treasury now! Sibyl was the star of the evening. Take care, little one, it is a night of fate!" may or may not shine, just as oil, wick, and wind shall determine. Her beauty was of the Jewish type-long, straight black hair, eyes Wendeline, naturally timid, had not the gaze of midnight darkness, a complexion either dusky- of the multitude to fear. A portion of the room pale, or rich and warm as an Italian painting. was allotted to her, and converted into a fragrant On the evening of the Soldiers' Fair in the tent of cedar-covered sheets. This rustic bower Homer town-hall, she shone out gloriously, as was labelled invitingly, "The Sibyl's Cave," with the brief motto, "Open locks whoever knocks." Not that a knock was expected or would be audible on the soft white door. But just outside sat a grim old woman, who took the admission-money, and mumbled to herself whenever she allowed an eager visitor to push one side the curtain and ask for his fortune. Keen must have been the eyesight which could detect in this trembling hag any resemblance to the fair, laughing Dora Prescott. She had made herself appear quite toothless for the occasion by the aid of a little pink-colored spruce gum, and nearly sightless by dint of a pair of enormous leather-bowed spectacles. She was, moreover," for this evening only," as crafty as the Merchant of Venice, not to say as hideous in her poke bonnet as one of the Gray Sisters. No one was more amused than Dora herself by the sublime contrast she presented to the resplendent prophetess a few feet beyond her in the cave. There sat Wendeline, as lovely as Zobeide, as fascinating as Cleopatra, though trembling like the daughter of Japheth. The fame of her wondrous beauty spread through the house, and the audience pressed about the cave in throngs, awaiting a sight of the dazzling wonder. "Don't break a poor, honest body's bones with your bad manners," mumbled the toothless old creature, who, though jostled nearly into a jelly, was receiving in her palsied hands many a double fee, over which she chuckled in maudlin delight. Meanwhile, Wendeline's eyes were shining with novel excitement. What should she say?— what do? She had undertaken the character of fortune-teller in a fit of desperation, and had scarcely bestowed a thought upon the manner in which she should perform her office. Astrology she had only heard of, and as for palmistry, all she knew of the art she had studied in the last half hour before dressing her hair. She had read enough to know that the wise ones have mapped out upon the human palm divers mountains and hollows, lines and crosses, absurdly supposed to signify wonderful things. But what precise elevations constituted the mountains of "Saturn," of "Venus," of the "Moon," and which little wandering seams stood, or ran, for the lines of "luck," of "love," of "honor," of "marriage," and the like, she neither knew nor cared. 46 Never mind; she would pretend to be very wise; and half a Sibyl's power lay in an assumption of superior knowledge-of that she was very sure, She began timidly, thinking to send all the youths to the war, all the maidens to the soldiers' hospitals. She had not dreamed that she should come to the point of half believing in herself that her own oracular words would sound to her like sentences of fate; but so it was. After she had told a dozen fortunes or 80, it was as if she had thrown her whole soul into the character, and were in truth a reader of palms. In her jewel-crowned head seemed to lie like sparks of fire the hints and promises of the far-off future. So strongly was the possession upon her, that when little boys and girls looked up in her face with their innocent, trusting glances, she almost shuddered with the imaginary fear that what she said to them would prove itself true. So she hurriedly drew smiling pictures of pleasant firesides, little journeys, pretty presents, and dared not whisper to the confiding dears a word of possible evil. But when people came to her in whose faces she instinctively traced the marks of wrong thought or wicked feeling, she felt impelled to utter a low word of warning, and hint at shadows in the future. Many a person went out from the Sibyl's Cave that evening with looks of wonder, and said "Is that woman yonder a witch? Why, she has told me of things in my past life which I was sure no soul knew but myself!" Droll scraps of rhyme, appropriate similes and witty jests, seemed oddly dancing in Wendeline's brain that night. A merry old bachelor said she had doomed him with a couplet "You'll be married, but you'll have no wife, A saucy bride shook her curls and tried to repeat the lines of Byron concerning a candle in the window on a summer's night, attracting all the insects of the air "Those that are out beat heads against the pane, And those within beat to get out again.' |