“I would rather be right than President!”
The inevitable dash of the ludicrous struck across the calamity in the form of my father’s disapproval of the velvet bonnet I would not have exchanged on Saturday for a ducal tiara. I had meant to reserve the appearance of it as a pleasant surprise, and to call his attention to it when I was dressed for church next day. I did not blame him for not noticing it in our rapid tramp up Capitol Street on Saturday. He had weightier matters on his mind. With the honest desire of diverting him from the train of ideas that had darkened his visage for twenty-four hours, I donned the precious head-piece ten minutes before it was time to set out for church, and danced into my mother’s room where he sat reading. Walking up to him, I swept a marvellous courtesy and bolted the query full at him:
“How do you like my new bonnet?”
He lowered the book and surveyed me with lack-lustre eyes.
“Not at all, I am sorry to say.”
I fairly staggered back, casting a look of anguished appeal at my mother. Being of my sex, she comprehended it.
“Why, father! we think it very pretty,” laying her hand on his shoulder. “And she never had a velvet bonnet before.”
I saw the significant tightening of the small fingers, and he must have felt it. But the dull eyes did not lighten, the corners of the mouth did not lift.
“As I said, I do not admire it. Nor do I think it becoming.”