Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-03-28
THE INFLUENCE OF THINGS.
A Woman's Whole Life Was Changed by
 a Red Hat with a Duil Red Plume.

Woman's Whole Life Was Changed by
 Red Hat with Dnil Red Plume.
 There was once q lady. sober in mind and sedate in manner, whose plain dress exactly represented her desire to be in conspicuous, to do good, to improve every day of her lifo in actions that should benefit her kind. She was a se- rious person. inclined to improving con versation. to the rsading of bound books that cost at least a dollar and half (fifteen cents of which she gladly contributed to the author), and she had distaste for the gay society which was mainly flut- ter of ribbons and talk and pretty faces: and when she meditatcd, as she did in her spare moments. her heart was sore over the frivolity of life and the empti- ness of fashion. She longed to make the world better. and without any priggish- ness she set 1t an example of simplicity and sobriety, of cheerful acquiescence in pi;3 mess and inconspicuouSncss.
 One day, it was in the autumn, this lady had occasion to bay a new hat From a great number offered to her she selected d red one with dull red plume It did not agree with the rest of her ap- parel; it did not fit her apparent charac- ter. What impulse led to this selection she could not explain. She was not tired of being good. but something in the jauntineSs of the hat and the color pleased her. If it were q temptation she did not intend to yield to it, but she thought she would take the hat home and try 1t. Perhaps her nature felt the need of a little warmth. The hat pleased her still moro when she got it home and put 1t on and surveyed herself in the mirror. Indeed, there was a new ex- pression ill her face that corresponded to the hat. She put 1t off and looked at it. There was something almost humanly winning and temptations in it. In short, she kept it, and when she wore it abroad she was not conscious of its incongruity to herself or to her dress, but of the in congruity of the rest of her apparel to tho hat, which seemed to have a sort of intelligence of its own, at least power of changing anl conforming things to itself. By degrees one article after another in the lady's wardrobe was laid aside and another substituted for it an- swered to the demanding spirit of the hat.
 In a little while this plain lady was not plain any more, but most gorgeously dressed and possessed with the desire to be in the height of the fashion. It came to this that she had a tea gown made out of a window curtain with tiamboyant pattern. Solomon in all his glory would have been ashamed of himself in her presence.
 But this was not all. Her disposition her ideas, her whole life were changed. She did not any more think of going about doing good, but of amusing her self. She read nothing but stories in paper covers. In place of being sedate and sober minded she was frivolous to excess; she spent most of her time with women who liked to "frivol." She kept Lent in the most expensive way, so as to make the impression upon everybody that she was better than the extremest kind of Lent. From liking the sedatest company she passed to liking the gayest society and the most fashionable method of getting rid of her time. Nothing whatever had happened to her, and she is now an ornament to society.-Charles Dudley Warner in Harper's.