nton
heard a great noise in the street before her door. She was told that a
child had just been crushed by a vehicle. Without stopping to ask whether
the child was white or black or if it still lived, Tonton glanced around
for her sun-bonnet, but, not finding it at hand, darted bareheaded into
the street. At the door she met her young brother, and, as the sun was
hot, she took his hat and put it on her own head. The Rubicon was
crossed--Tonton had discovered the hat!

All she had heard was a false alarm. The crushed child was at play again
before its mother's door. It had been startled by a galoping team, had
screamed, and instantly there had been a great hubbub and crowd. But ten
minutes later the little widow, the hat in her hand, entered the domicile
of its maker and astonished the woman by ordering a hat for her own use,
promising five dollars if the work was done to her satisfaction. The
palmetto was to be split into the finest possible strips and platted into
the form furnished by Madame Tonton. It was done; and on Sunday the hat,
trimmed with roses and ribbons, made its appearance in the church of St.
Martin, on the prettiest head in the world. The next Sunday you could see
as many hats as the hatmaker had had time to make, and before the end of
the month all the women in St. Martinville were wearing palmetto hats.
To-day the modistes were furnishing them at the fabulous price of
twenty-five dollars,--trimmed, you understand,--and palmetto hats were
really getting to be a branch of the commerce of the little city; but
ours, thanks to Alix's flowers and ribbons, cost but ten dollars.

The church was crowded. The service, performed by an old priest nearly a
hundred years of age, was listened to with interest; but what astonished
me was to see the crowd stop at the church door, the women kissing; to
hear laughter, chat, and criticism at the door of this sacred place as if
it were the public square. I understood the discontent that knit my
father's brows and the alacrity with which he descended the church steps.
Tonton saw and came to us--so fresh, so young, she was indeed the queen of
beauty and fashion. Out of nothing Tonton could work wonders. Her dress
to-day was of camayeu the pattern of which was bunches of
strawberries--the very same stuff as our dresses; but how had she made it
to look so different? And her hat! It was a new marvel of her invention.
She had taken a man's felt hat and entirely covered it with