artist's hand his big soft felt hat. Turning the flapping brim up, she
fastened it to the crown in three places with jewelled pins, tore a
bunch of velvet from her dinner corsage, secured it directly in front,
and clapping the hat on the back of her head, dashed downstairs and was
in the saddle with a scrabble and a bound, and away like mad, followed
by two men, who were her unwilling companions. Riding longer than she
had intended, she returned in broad daylight. All Paris was agog over
her odd head gear. Her impudent, laughing face caught their fancy yet
again, and she trotted down from the Arc de Triomphe between two
rippling little streams of comment and admiration, with, "Comme elle est
belle!" "Quelle aplomb!" "Matin, quelle chic!" "Elle est forte
gentille!" "C'est le coup de grace!" "Le chapeau! le chapeau!" "La belle
Pearl! la belle Pearl!" reaching her distinctly at every other moment.

And that was the origin of the back-turned, broad-brimmed hat that had
such vogue before the arrival of the Gainsborough or picture hat.

If I were a young actress, I would rather be noted for acting than for
originating a new style of garment; but it is a free country, thank God,
and a big one, with room for all of us, whatever our preferences. And
though the young actress has the clothes question heavy on her mind now,
and finds it hard to keep up with others and at the same time out of
debt, she has the right to hope that by and by she will be so good an
actress, and so valuable to the theatre, that a fat salary will make the
clothes matter play second fiddle, as is right and proper it should, to
the question of fine acting.