was placed in the days of crinolines, but doubtless
Hilda's clothes did not fit as Mr. White seems to think they did.

That strenuous follower of millinery, Mr. Gibson, might give lessons
to his friend, Mr. Davis, with advantage to the writer, if not to the
artist. In _Captain Macklin_, the young man's cousin makes her first
appearance in a thin gown, and a white hat trimmed with roses,
reminding the adventurous captain of a Dresden statuette, in spite of
the fact that she wore heavy gauntlet gloves and carried a trowel. The
lady had been doing a hard day's work in the garden. No woman outside
the asylum ever did gardening in such a costume, and Mr. Davis
evidently has the hat and gown sadly mixed with some other pleasant
impression.

The feminine reader immediately hides Mr. Davis' mistake with the
broad mantle of charity, and in her own mind clothes Beatrice properly
in a short walking skirt, heavy shoes, shirt-waist, old hat tied down
over the ears with a rumpled ribbon, and a pair of ancient masculine
gloves, long since discarded by their rightful owner. Thus does lovely
woman garden, except on the stage and in men's books.

In _The Story of Eva_, Mr. Payne announces that Eva climbed out of a
cab in "a fawn-coloured jacket," conspicuous by reason of its newness,
and a hat "with an owl's head upon it!"

The jacket was possibly a coat of tan covert cloth with strapped
seams, but it is the startling climax which claims attention. An owl!
Surely not, Mr. Payne! It may have been a parrot, for once upon a
time, before the Audubon Society met with widespread recognition,
women wore such things, and at afternoon teas where many fair
ones were gathered together the parrot garniture was not without
significance. But an owl's face, with its glaring glassy eyes, is
too much like a pussy cat's to be appropriate, and one could no
wear it at the back without conveying an unpleasant impression
of two-facedness, if the coined word be permissible.

Still the owl is no worse than the trimming suggested by a funny
paper. The tears of mirth come yet at the picture of a hat of rough
straw, shaped like a nest, on which sat a full-fledged Plymouth Rock
hen, with her neck proudly, yet graciously curved. Perhaps Mr. Payne
saw the picture and forthwith decided to do something in the same
line, but there is a singular inappropriateness in placing the bird of
Minerva upon the head of poor Eva, who made the old, old bargain in
which she ha