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 colouring eyelashes and eyebrows and treating the lips with red pomade. The mirror was in frequent use. Many of the polished metal mirrors of those days were adorned with precious stones and had handles of mother-o'-pearl; and silver and gold were common in the fashioning of the framework. Hair appointments, including combs, were very decorative, frequently being made of ivory, and many beautiful carved specimens are to be seen in our museums. The dressing table as we understand it to-day was of later days, for many centuries elapsed between the toilet of the ladies just mentioned and that of English dames whose odds and ends are to be found in most houses to-day--for few are without family relics of the toilet.