"Frills and pipings all around——"
"Gored, or cut in one piece——"
"Oh, pompadour, by all means, with——"
These were the snatches of conversation which I caught from the women as they passed me. The men were mostly silent and glum.
This curious country, that Aunt Gwendolin says has gone away ahead of the rest of the world, why do its women talk more about dress than anything else? And why have its men such pushing, hurrying, knock-you-down-if-you-stand-in-my-way faces?
When I got back to the establishment of the Parisienne modiste I found my aunt ready to take me to the milliner's to be "outfitted with hats."
Walking a block or two we entered a much-decorated room, and at my aunt's request an attendant brought several hats for our inspection—curious-looking things like straw bee-hives, or huge wasps' nests, covered over largely with wings and the heads of poor little dead birds, ends and loops of ribbon, roses and leaves, looking as if they were only half sewed on and liable to tumble off if touched, and long feathers, buckles, and pins. My aunt selected several, fitted them on my head, and declared they were very becoming to my Spanish style of beauty. I, almost in tears, whispered into her ear, so the attendant would not hear me, "I shall not have to wear them where any one can see me, shall I?" Aunt Gwendolin smiled (the attendant was looking) and replied sweetly, "Yes, they are very pretty, indeed."
We in China could never kill our birds and wear them on our heads—the breasts of our beautiful mandarin ducks, the wings of our gold and silver pheasants, the heads of our pretty parrakeets—we never could do it—we would feel like murderers. Our majestic-looking wild geese, that fly over our heads in flocks sometimes thirty miles in length, going south in the autumn and north in the spring, we never molest them. The Buddhists believe that all geese perform an aerial pilgrimage to the holiest of the lakes in the mountains every year, transporting the sins of the neighbourhood, returning to the valley with a new stock of inspiration for the people in the locality where they choose to alight. Here in this civilised country—I have been reading in one of their magazines that grandmother loaned me—they catch the beautiful water-fowls, kill them, and hack off their downy breasts to make ladies' hats. And the little young birds starve in the nest, because the mother never returns to feed them. Ugh! Civilised countries are dreadful!
When the hats were selected my aunt conducted me to the furrier's.
"The cold weather is not over yet," she said, "and while we are about it I shall select some necessary furs."