Valley Spirit

--The managers of the Public Library and Reading Room expect to open to the Public on the First of September. They have a convenient room in the Mansion House, and have selected a large and valuable library. It is to be hoped that this Enterprise will be sustained by our citizens. So far it has been the work of but a few enterprising persons. There are many in our midst perfectly able to help, who have yet shown no interest in it. Come, Gentlemen, lend your aid.

--We have not said any thing about the state of the pavements lately; our town Fathers are doing very well on the streets, and we trust the side walks will next claim their attention. In the mean time, we would call their attention to a board walk that is considered a public nuisance, and calls loudly for removal.

Light summer toilets engross all the attention, and there is a great run of white, by far the prettiest wear for this melting period of the year. What, for instance, is cooler or more harmonious than a white robe.

A fashionable costume consists of three distinct parts--dress, fichu, and mantle-- all of which can be worn together or separately. The skirt is of white muslin, and there are two flounces and two large bouillons, and two flounces and two bouillons again. In the hem of the flounces is a blue, pink, or green rib and and a much wider one is run underneath the bouillons. The corsage is low, lined with silk the color of the riband, and a petticoat of the same silk is worn with the skirt. The sleeves, reaching to the middle of the arm, have two flounces and four bouillons, carried nearly up to the shoulder. At the waist is also a riband, fastening either in front or behind, and, if the dress is preferred high, the shoulders can be covered with a fichu composed of flounces and bouillons, and drawn at the throat with riband. For outdoors this toilet is completed by a mantle trimmed to match the skirt and . . . [text missing] . . . length and voluminousness of this mantle that distinguishes it from all that have been worn hitherto, and it is patronised by those ladies who are always on the watch for new and striking changes.

For morning wear there is nothing equal to clear muslin, colored or figured, made with loose jacket or full bodice; either the body or jacket is fastened in front by bows of muslin, the edges of which are rounded and edged with a guipure.

Fashion in bonnets is nearly at a stand still, and our artists, for the time being, have ceased racking their brains for novelties. The newest thing we can mention is a bonnet made of fine black hair, embroidered with buttercups in silken straw. The riband used in trimming has a black ground, and the flowers at the side entirely black with jet centres. The effect of the combination is very original, and it has the advantage of defying dust.

The heat is too great for caps to be worn in the house, and their place is prettily supplied by resilles of silk lace. A wide riband goes all round and terminates in a bow on one side; but, in order to render this coiffure perfectly graceful it should have something like a light hood at the back. If the resille is made of gold or silver thread, it can be worn in the ball room by young girls, and Spanish acorns, finely worked, serve to complete it. Fair women can wear the hood of the black lace, which keeps its freshness and is not oppressively hot. Elderly ladies can line them with thin silk, and those who have plenty of hair have only to put a flower on one side, and they are at once in possession of a charming coiffure.