ed with the days when much
that is now deemed curious and antique was in common use, has brought
about a new order of things, and made other trinkets than patch, powder,
and salve boxes acceptable gifts between lovers; hence we scarcely
realize the sentiment that induced the donors of toilet requisites to
bestow them on the ladies of their choice, or the recipients to welcome
some of the curios obviously given from sentimental motives.

The illustrations in books published many years ago incidentally
recorded the use of some of the curios then in the making. The artists
certainly were not over-modest, and far from bashful in the lucid way in
which they pictured or caricatured the toilet table, and the maiden who
in those days was acquainted with the uses of the little relics of her
day which are now among the household curios appropriately grouped under
the heading of this chapter.

The Table and its Secrets.

It is before the looking glass, the central object on, or forming a part
of, the toilet table, that the chief mysteries of the toilet are
performed. It is obvious, therefore, that the table, to be in accord
with the use its name suggests, should be the grand receptacle for all
the minor preparations and their boxes or covers, as well as for the
brushes and combs and mirrors and sundries a Society beauty may require.

It is scarcely necessary to tax the mental faculties in imagining what
may have been the equivalent to brushes and combs with which the
prehistoric woman of thousands of years ago brushed and combed her
tangled tresses. She was ingenious enough to break off and trim sharp
prickly thorns, and to use them as pins to fasten her scanty home-made
garments, no doubt; and she would probably find in Nature's supply what
served her when making her toilet, and viewing herself in clear pool or
stream. Artists have pictured such toilets, and poets have told of the
toilet and the bath of Greek and Roman maidens of olden time.

It is said that the toilet of a Roman lady occupied much of her time.
After she had risen and taken her bath she placed herself in the hands
of the _cosmotes_, slaves who possessed the secrets of preserving and
beautifying the complexion of the skin. She frequently wore a medicated
mask and went through what would to-day be considered very painful
operations. Her skin was rubbed with pumice stone, and superfluous hairs
were removed with a pair of tweezers. Grecian slaves were adepts at