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THE WOMAN'S HANDBAG.

[Communications addressed to this department form women of any and every occupation, habit of thought, and social condition will be gladly printed]

I know that the women who read The Handbag will be interested in hearing about something to wear. They wouldn't be worth much if they weren't. I once had a friend who lived in Colorado, and who insisted on spending the money he earned by hard labor at the bar, on mines From these mones he never reaped any return. So I ventured to ask him one day what particular compensation there was in this waste of good money.

"Idiot" said he naughtily, "because I live in Colorado and not mine is unworthy the protection of the state."

That is no more emphstic than my ideas about women who are not interested in dress. I have known a few who looked down on dress-and I must say that I had no use for them They were guys. They garnished neither the outside nor the inside of themselves, and I didn't sonder their husbands snubbed them, and their children looked half ashamed and half amused at the preteptions to lutellectusity which women devoid of the sense of beauty, somehow or other, affect I am in Chicago at present It is a great city, made up of worlds fair, buildings, men and women and clothes. Now the worlds fair seems to me very fariguing and I weary of these miles and miles of streets and the faces that one meets, but I am interested in the clothes

Flowers are all the rage, and they are immensely decorative. Hats are trimmed with wreaths of them, dresses are embroidered with them, and they make a favorite pattern in the soft summer silks Here is one costume I saw. The dress was of softest black silk, with pink clover in its natural color, and leaves of the pink clover in the same tint, manking with their long stems an exquiste pattern Three bands of velvet an inch and a half white came from the neck and met at the waist. where there was a bow with long stremors and loops, The cuffs and collar flared, and were trimmed with the velvet The golves were black. The bat was black sailor with a narrow rim, trimmed with a band of black velvet, with a poping of clover-colored crepe and large rosettes of clover-colored crepe in front. Two black birds perched almost behind these rosetes. The costume was indescribably chic. I wondering how men could be interested in McKinley bill when there were such costumes to be seen. But, then men are so stupid.

Elia W. Peattie.