No, Marm Prudence was not aware that she did. Things took folks different, she said, placidly. She had an aunt when she was a little gal, that used to have spasms reg'lar every time she heard the baker's cart. Some thought she had had hopes of the baker before he married a widow woman, but you couldn't always account for these things. What a pretty braid Rita was getting!
"'WAS SUCH A HAT EVER SEEN IN PARIS?'"
Indeed, the work suited Rita's nimble fingers to perfection, and yard after yard of snowy braid rolled over her lap and grew into a pile at her feet. She was eager to make her first hat. After an hour or two of braiding, she discovered that it suited Manuela's genius better than her own. The basket of splints was turned over to the willing handmaiden, and good-natured Marm Prudence showed Rita how to sew the braids together smooth and flat, and initiated her into the mysteries of crown and brim. In a creditably short space of time, Rita, with infinite pride, held her first hat aloft, and twirled it round and round on her finger.
"But, it is perfect!" she cried. "The shape, the colour, the air of it. Manuela, quick! a mirror! hold it for me—so! look!" She took the ribbon from her belt, and began to twist it in one coquettish knot after another about the hat, which she had set on her dark hair.
"Is that chic? Is it adorable, I ask you? Was such a hat ever seen in Paris? Never! I wear no other from this day on; hear me swear it! It will become the rage; I will make it so. Or—no! I will keep to myself the secret, and others will die of envy. I name it, Manuela. The Prudencia, for thee, my kind hostess. Why do you laugh?"
Marm Prudence was twinkling in her quiet way. "I was only thinkin' there'd have to be one soldier boy go without his hat to-morrow!" she said, good-humouredly. "It does look nice on you, though, Miss Margaritty, that's certin."
Blushing scarlet, Rita tore the hat from her head.
"Ah!" she cried, casting it on the floor. "Wretch, ingrate, serpent that I am! Take away the glass, girl! take it away; break it into a thousand pieces, to shame my vanity, and never speak to me of hats again. Henceforward I tie a shawl over my head, for the remainder of my life; I have said it."
Much depressed, she worked away in silence, as if her life depended upon it. Manuela, shrugging her shoulders, carried off the glass, but did not think it necessary to obey the injunction to break it. She was used to her señorita's outbreaks, and returned placidly to her braiding as if nothing had happened.