, 1889-03-31
THE INFLUENCE OF THINGS.
A woman' Whole Life Was Changed by
a Red Hat with n Dull Red Plume.

A woman's Whole Life Wa Changed by
a Red Hat with n Dull Red Plume.
There was once a 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 life in actions that
should benefit her kind. She was q Sc
rious person, inclined to improving con-
v~ersation, to the reading of bound books
that cos at least a dollar and half (ffteen
cents of which she gladly contributed to
the author(, and she had a distaste for
the gay society which was mainly a fut-
ter of ribbons and talk and pretty faces;
and when she meditated, as she did in
her spare moments, her heart was sore
over the frivolity of life and the empti-
ness of fashion. She longed t make the
world better, and without any priggish-
ness she set 1t an example of simplicity
and sobriety, of cheerful acquiescence in
plainness and inconspicuousness.
One day, it was in the autumn, this
lady had occasion TO buy q new hat.
From n great number offered to her she
selected n red one with a dull red plume.
1t did not agree with the rest of her APP
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
j~auntiness of tho hat and the color
pleased her. If it were n temptation she
did not intend to yield to it, but she
thought she would take the hat home
and try it. Perhaps her nature felt the
need of a little warmth. The hat pleased
her still more when she got it home and
put 1t on and surveyed herself in the
mirror. Indeed, there was a new ex-
preston In her face that correspondent to
the hat. She put it off and looked al it.
There was something almost humanity
winning and temptations in it. In short,
h 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
the hat, which seemed to have a sort of
intelligence of its own, at least n power
of changing and 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.
w Nllle lnls pam lauy was nOU
plain any more, but most %gorgeously
dressed and possessed with the desire to
be in the height of the fashion. 1t came
to this that she had a tea gown made out
of a winddw<curtain with n flamboyant
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 wa better than the EXTREMIST
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.