A WOMAN MAKING HER- OWN HAT.

Thames Star, Volume VII, Issue 2116, 15 October 1875, Page 4

A WOMAN MAKING HER- OWN HAT.

Mi* Howard Paul in liis entertainment says, " that when a sudden sharp fever of economy 'attacks a woman, and she determines to make a hat ora bonnet for herself, for a brief period, between the formation of the resolution and the consummation of the deed, her"mind passes through various amusing stages of agitation. First, she gets herself up in a most attractive guise, and proceeds to purchase a " shape "—as I belieVePthe fragile outline or framework of ; the future structure is called—then, taking the 'bus home,'she drinks in the details of every hat that enters, and learns them all by heart, and does mental sums over the cost of the ribbon, and makes up her mind to have flowers in her's like those worn by a woman in the corner, and lace like-that gaudy-looking creature in the middle. The next day she walks down the stroetj and studies all the hats coming along, and when a woman passes her with one op, she twists her neck rounds© see how it looks behind, apd is disgusted that the woman is also dislocating her neck to see how she trims her hat. When she arrives in front of a milliner's, she lingers until she has analysed all the hats in the window, and she determines to trim hers nineteen, different ways, and decides not to have flowers like the woman who sat in the corner. Then she shoots into the shop and asks to " see hats " with the air of a person who wishes to invest a small fortune in head-gear. She examines every hat in the establishment, overhauls ten bushels of flowers, gets about fifteen shillingsworth of work out of the saleswoman, and then says she will "look further." Then she gets-home with her mind fixed on thirtyeight or nine different styles in which she wants to trim her hat. After a while she.begins to think she ought to have a feather in it; and she. passes two or three sleepless nights trying to decide whether to put one in or not. At last she resolves she will. Then she lies awake, for tw/p, more, nights,, endeavoring to determine whether it shall be r.ed or blue. She settles on blue. She buys the trimming, and sews it on in twenty successive positions, her mind filled with deepest anxiety as to whether the feather should go on the right side; but just then Mrs De Boots passes the window with a. fealher on-the left side of hers, and so she changes it. The next morning Mrs Mtzbrdwn calls, and her feather is on the right side, and then another change is made. At church next day Mrs Smith has feathers on both sides, and Mrs Johnson has one on: the top. Then more sleepless nights and paiuful uncertainty. At last,, in .utter, despair, she takes the hat to a milliner and pays thirty shillings to have it trimmed. When ifc comes home she pronounces it " hateful," and picks it all to pieces, and broods over it, and worries and frets and loses her appetite, and feels life to be a burden- for two weeks longer, until suddenly she has just the right thing, and becomes once more serene and happy, and j)uts the hat on and goes out and makes millions of other women miserable because their hats are trimmed exactly like hers. As a wife, woman is a blessing; as a mother naught can compare with her; as an organiser.of,new,hats, she is simply an object of amusement 6r-4-compassion.