t on her as
quickly and as attentively as possible. Acquaintances avoid stopping her
with long conversation that could not but torture and distress her. She
meets small kindnesses at every turn, which save unnecessary jars to
supersensitive nerves.

Once in a great while, a tactless person may have no better sense than to
ask her abruptly for whom she is in mourning! Such people would not
hesitate to walk over the graves in a cemetery! And fortunately, such
encounters are few.

Since many people, however, dislike long mourning veils and all crepe
generally, it is absolutely correct to omit both if preferred, and to wear
an untrimmed coat and hat of plainest black with or without a veil.

=A WORD OF ECONOMY=

In the first days of stress, people sometimes give away every colored
article they possess and not until later are they aware of the effort
necessary, to say nothing of the expense, of getting an entire new
wardrobe. Therefore it is well to remember:

Dresses and suits can be dyed without ripping. Any number of fabrics--all
woolens, soft silks, canton crepe, georgette and chiffon, dye perfectly.
Buttonholes have sometimes to be re-worked, snaps or hooks and eyes
changed to black, a bit of trimming taken off or covered with dull braid,
silk or crepe, and the clothes look every bit as well as though newly
ordered.

Straw hats can be painted with an easily applied stain sold in every drug
and department store for the purpose. If you cannot trim hats yourself, a
milliner can easily imitate, or, if necessary, simplify the general
outline of the trimming as it was, and a seamstress can easily cover dyed
trimmings on dresses with crepe or dull silk. Also tan shoes--nearly all
footwear made of leather--can be dyed black and made to look like new by
any first class shoemaker.

=MOURNING MATERIALS=

Lustreless silks, such as crepe de chine, georgette, chiffon, grosgrain,
peau de soie, dull finish charmeuse and taffeta, and all plain woolen
materials, are suitable for deepest mourning. Uncut velvet is as deep
mourning as crepe, but cut velvet is not mourning at all! Nor is satin or
lace. The only lace permissible is a plain or hemstitched net known as
"footing."

Fancy weaves in stockings are not mourning, nor is bright jet or silver. A
very perplexing decree is that clothes entirely of white are deepest
mourning but the addition of a black belt or hat or gloves produces second
mourning.

Patent leather and s