CHOLMONDELEY'S HAT.

New Zealand Mail, Issue 1423, 8 June 1899, Page 19

CHOLMONDELEY'S HAT.

(By a Quiet Woman.) I am, ordinarily, a very quiet woman. I like unbroken outlines and the severity of black. Secretly, I nourish an admiration for the Salvation Army bonnet, and could have thanked heaven sincerely had I been born a Quaker. 1 It suits my temper to go through life observing my fellows, myself unhindered; and I have generally managed so much until the other day, when one of Cholmondeley’s ships came in. “My dear/’ said he, " you shall have the handsomest hat in London. You need not always go about looking as if your second cousin.had died. I want you to make an effect at the Buxton-Tymmses’. And a new jacket as well.” I may have felt a little doubtful, but, if so, I must have hidden my feelings, for Cholmondeley’s radiance abated not at all. To town we went. Cholmondeley had intended Bond street, but it happened that, while taking a piece of Regent street on the way, his eye was caught, and no wonder, by a double shop-window full of hats. " Now,” said he, " here is the very thing!” We stopepd and looked. There were hats of every colour and shape: blue, green, mauve, crimson and magenta; some with nodding, various plumes, some with cabbages of silk and lace, and some adorned with both. I seemed to discern in each one more than a touch of the demi-mondaine, with a dash of the adventurous Countess. But Cholmondeley was dazzled. ” Come in,” said he; and wives must be obliging, so I went. The young person in command was very proud and confident, and we were like clay in the hands of a potter under her manipulation. “ The very thing for Madam’s complexion,” she said, looking at Cholmondeley. And Cholmondeley paid. How much I never intend to know. Nor will anything ever induce me to describe that hat. What its combination of colour, what its outlandish contours, shall always remain my shameful secret. But Cholmondeley did not share my feelings. " We’ve done it this time,” said he. " It’s a rippin’ hat. It makes me think of that Tennyson fellow, and what does he call ' the moving vapour that rolled about the head of the king ’ ?” " Oh, but nonsense !” I cried. " There wasn’t—and—-and—stuck about that vapour !” " Never mind,” said Cholmondeley. "It’s the general effect Igo for. You’ll see I’m about right.” Then we got the jacket; it was black and comely, and I was really gratified this time. * * * » * The way is long from our airy suburb to the Buxton-Tymmses’, and may be roughly proportioned by a train and a couple of omnibuses. It was in a second class railway carriage that I received the first warning of the effect likely to be produced on the British public by Cholmondeley’s venture in millinery. There was a tidy old gentleman sitting in the far corner of the compartment. He had a beautifully white beard, a tall hat, and everything handsome about him. His well-filled kid gloves were folded upon his knees in a manner which at once suggested a pew for a background. His venerable countenance, with the sole exception of his eyes, was directed at the cushions opposite. His strange look puzzled till I discovered that his eyes were twisted sidewavs upon me. Tor thirteen minutes exactly that nice old gentleman squinted rigidly at my hat. When at last I dismounted from the railway carriage I felt as though I had left a nightmare behind me. I took a

hasty look at him as I turned away. His head was immo'vably fixed, as though he had been under a pulpit, but he had slewed his glassy eyes right round, and they were still following my hat as it wundrew. With a sense of relief I hurried from the station and climbed into my omnibus, closely followed by a tall, well-dressed person, who sat down beside me.

I was wondering if Cholmondeley would forget what time he had to meet me at the Marble Arch, when I became conscious that the person who sat beside me was clearing his threat repeatedly. Involuntarily i glanced round, and I was greeted by a bland smile that illuminated a fine hook nose, a grizzled beard, and sort o;' counting-house demeanour. He, too, was mesmerised by Cholmondeley’s present. I looked away at once, feeling more convinced than ever that it was a mistake to wear another person’s hat, and that it is better to wear one that corresponds with your own disposition. Then I heard a voice in my ear, at once hoarse and honeysweet—- ” A great deal of traffic in the streets to-day ?” I would not be offended. After all, if the poor man liked that kind of hat he could not help himself. So I said " Yfes,” politely, but with gravity. ” This omnibus goes to Victoria, I believe f” " Yes.” "May I inquire if that is your destination ?”

His smile was so liberal that I stopped the omnibus, hailed a passing cab, and drove to my dressmaker's, for I was still too early for Cholmondelev.

My dressmaker was so unexpectedly animated that I found I had ordered two new dresses before I was aware, and neither was even grey. Facilis decensus. As I escaped into the street, I reflected that my dressmaker had judged a fool according to her folly, and wondered at myself for falling so readily into her net.

I was going soberly along in the direction of the Marble Arch, thinking of all the little books I had read in my young days that had had for their plot the many consequences of a single sin, when I noticed a country-gentleman sort of person staring fixedly at my nat as he passed me. About two minutes farther on, I was excessively puzzled to meet the same person, v passing again in the same direction. w:th the same expression, which was gradually becoming familiar to me. He was evidently the third victim to tl e gay attractions which I carried on my head. Presently, someone cleared Ins tin cat loudly at my elbow, and I look-j ! up, and there he was. He was a nice, fresh-’cok-ing person, in a well-cut tweed suit. He had a fair beard and a beautiful colour m his cheeks, and a stick mat somehow suggested the hall of a country house. " Now,” I said to myself, “ if you met this person on a country lawn, you would mind him no more than a flower-pot, so why should you mind mm now ? ' So I quickened my pace to a sharp walk, and tried to feel unconcerned. In a moment he was beside me. I fell b:vk, at a looked in a shop window; he politely waited till I came up. I tried to io s c- myself in a crowd, but it was all of o use. he was a mighty hunter. It was not that I objected to anyone n oking- at my hat, because I am vj.JJng to admit that it had the air of being designed to that end; but simply that his admiration of it was too persistent. I hope I ant not cowardly, but if even a gander were to pursue me for any length of time, if would set up in me the instinct of flight, And once that instinct is set working in the female bosom, it rapidly develops into panic. With panic, then, like wings at my heels, I flew rather than walked in the direction of the Marble Arch; and, still following my hat, as the mackerel swims after the moving bait, came my fine gentleman in grey. Just as I was expecting a rapid manoeuvre to the left, I mercifully ran against Cholmondeley. "Oh, Cholmondeley,” I said, " am so very glad to see you!” And I almost laughed as the country person shot rapidly past us, without venturing so much as a glance at my fatal head-dress. " You are out of breath,” said Cholmondeley. " I told you to take a cab all the way.”

“ Yes, but what an expense!” I answered. "Oh, Cholmondeley, I can never, never wear your present again ! There is a kind of person that cannot take his eyes off it, and will follow it down a whole street.” " Oh, that’s it, is it ?” said he. "Is that kind of person about just now?” "Oh dear, no!” I cried; for Cholmondelev has a very heavy fist. " Well, never mind. Cheer up!” he said. " I assure you, it’s nothing compared with the feeling there is for a top hat and a velvet collar. Why, thei’e are many people who think so much of a good overcoat that they will clutch hold of it in the street, and call it pet names!"

"Is it possible?” said I. “ But, then, you are a man, and can hit back, while I can only run. Cholmondeley, I am, as you know, a quiet woman, and the mother of two, and I will not again delude my fellow creatures _by wearing a beacon to skittishness on miy head ” " Do as you like, my dear,” said Cholmondeley, pleasantly; "but, let me tell you, I never saw you look so well in your life. Now,” he said, as an intelligent hansom drove up of its own accord, " it remains to he seen what effect it will have at the Buxton-Tymmses’.”—" The Sketch.”

Verditschew, a town in the province of Kiev, Russia, is to be sold by auction. It has become bankrupt.