The San Francisco call., 1898-04-10

..tIaueIuiah. haIlelujah!" sang the choir
 above her head.
 Hardly knew you. hardly knew you were
 the words she thought they said. Tor she thought the very hymn they sang
 was all about her bonnet
 With the ribbon and the feather and the
 bit of lace upon 1t.
 1 O be well bonneted on Easter
 Sunday is an adjunct as essen
 tial to religious harmony as 1t is . a desire distinctly feminine. For, ..Tbis is the day, and this the happy When her flower of a bonnet is just in
 bloom"
 This Is the season when her hat Is trimmed to order on the congregation side To be obliged to wear an old or an unbecoming bonnet on this day of days is a severe pe.-ance And these thoughts are certainly disturbing to the mental attitude of prayer.
 That these sentiments are not wholly the monopoly of youth some of our representative women have given tes- timony in their reminiscent Easter bon- net trials.
 ''1 really never attached much impor- tance to Easter bonnets until this
 
 T can scarcely tell why I should do so now; but I must. admit that I took considerable pride in this pink and brown creation. Just to get friends opinion one day last week I pulled the bandbox containing it from under the bed and found the latest Qftter) ary event of my household. The crown of my bonnet was filled to the brim with a of lit
 This is the first Easter that have had to purchase two bonnets for the one occasion, and perhaps it is the most important one; but it is not my earliest Easter bonnet trial This oc- cured in Baltimore when I was a girl, It was my first visit to a city and I found it a place of wonders It was the day before Easter, and I was go- ing to see the Mermaid, the beautiful lady with long golden hair and a fish's tail.
 50 tedious is this day,
 AS in the night before some festival To an impatient child that hath new robes And may not wear them"
 T worried my governess until she granted me the indulgence of wear ing my new bonnet to the Zoo. Such crowds of people were there and so many things to look at that I grew inn patient to see this wonderful mermaid 1 saw it and the pet illusion of my childhood was destroyed. It made me cross to see such an ugly thing, and as l turned away l saw in the distance a girl with a bonnet on just like mine but my, what shocking behavior! Even at this distance I could detect her supercilious airs. While she dis gusted, still she attracted me, and I found myself advancing toward her and l was surprised to see her walk to- ward me. She was my own reflection in mirror. I tried to sooth my wound ed vanity by getting even with the monkeys. l poked the little ones with my parasOl until my bonnet was snatched from my head by big mon- key, that, unperceived by me, had crawled up the bars above me, and in a twinkling he doused it into a pan of water within the cage. In less than a minute each monkey had some rem- nant of that bonnet. Lace, ribbon and flowers were trailed through the dust.
 My governess converted her veil into a head-dress for me to wear home, and the next day I was punished by having to wear my old bonnet to church"
 Wi bannet off, quoth I, sweet lass,
 l think ye seem to ken me"
 "The memory of my first Easter bon net trial dates back to my girlhood days" said Mrs. J. H. Jewett. At this time 1 was attending a seminary near Shelbyville. Ky, and with the other girls I rebeled at the then pre- vailing style of the slat sun bonnet. To be sure they were made of elegant ma terials and of the most becoming shade of silks, but what chafed us particu- larly was the fact that they shut out from view everything in the church ex- cept the minister. Just imagine three hundred and fifty bonneted girls staring straight ahead-three hundred and fifty girls who had as mauy sweethearts in the rear of the church; for upon such festive days as Easter the boys semi