178 MEMOIR OF GEORGE WILSON. CHAP. IV. 



" The weather here, which for a while was warm and sunny, 

 has suddenly repented of its mildness, and made us shiver with 

 keen, cold, and cutting blasts ; whether because Murphy, the 

 Almanac maker, had so arranged it ; or because, as I hope, the 

 warmth and sunniness are being liained for their right time, sum- 

 mer ; or in consequence of the ladies presuming on a few good 

 days to doff their tippets and thick cloaks, and sport lighter, 

 frailer, and less comforting dresses. 



" How oddly ladies' ideas shift as to the part of their dresses 

 needing decoration. They used (I speak of my remembrances) 

 to wear lace in the form of veils, then it descended and be- 

 came flounces to their gowns ; a partial rise took place, and 

 last year it was dedicated to adorning their mantillas and tip- 

 pets. This winter, I find, it has climbed to its former heights, 

 and black fringes of precious old lace are hung along the edges 

 of bonnets, or thrown around (I know not what it is termed) 

 the straw built capital I mean of a lady's bonnet. It will next 

 be woven into veils and resume its ancient place, after the 

 approved fashion of fashions, which, like endless chains, return 

 to themselves, or like the fingers of dials, revolve in appointed 

 circles, which they never leave. By the by, I saw a very 

 curious head-dress the -other day, which I intended to have 

 written about to Jeanie, whom I always look upon as destined, 

 at no far distant day, to take her stand among the arbitresses 

 of fashion. Subtle and discriminating I know she is, in the 

 patterns of samplers and foot- stools, and very learned in all the 

 mysteries and niceties of perplexing stitches. For her, there- 

 fore, this fact is specially intended ; but having forgot to tell it 

 her in the letter to herself, I intrust you with its delivery. 

 Well, not to make a very trifling matter swell into absurd pro- 

 portions, I was greatly surprised to see last Sabbath day, as I 

 walked home from church, a bird of Paradise on a lady's 

 bonnet. I have seen tails and wings, or wing feathers, of these 

 glorious creatures glistening in the sun, as they did when cloth- 

 ing living members ; but a whole bird surprised me ; yet there 

 it was, the head and beak projecting over the side. When I say 

 a whole bird, I of course exclude one element of integrity, or 

 wholeness, in birds, viz., feet ; for you know that birds of Para- 



