Hats and Hairpieces

Excerpt from the book Beyond the Rocks, 1906:

"I am just too sorry to keep you, mon cher Bracondale," Mrs. McBride said presently, suddenly opening the adjoining door a few inches, "but it is a quite exasperating hat which has delayed me. I can't get the thing on at the angle I want. I --"

"Mayn't I come and help, dear lady?" interrupted Hector. [...] He then took a chair by the dressing table and inspected the situation.

Seven or eight dainty bandboxes strewed the floor, some of their contents peeping from them -- feathers, aigrettes, flowers, impossible birds -- all had their place, and on the sofa were three chef-d'oeuvre ruthlessly tossed aside! While, in the widow's fair hands, was a gem of grey tulle and the most expensive feather heart of woman could desire!

"You see," she said plaintively, "it is meant to go just so," and she placed it once more upon her head, a handsome head of forty-five, fresh and well preserved and comely. "But the vile-tempered thing refuses to stay there once I let go, and no pin will correct it."

"Base ingratitude," said Lord Bracondale, with feeling; "but couldn't you stuff these in the hiatus?" and he tenderly lifted a bunch of nut-brown curls from the dressing-table. "They would fill up the gap and keep the fractious thing steady."

"Of course they would," said Mrs. McBride; "but I have a rooted objection to auxiliary nature trimmings. That bunch was sent with the hat, and Marie has been trying to persuade me to wear it ever since we began this struggle. But I won't! My hair's my own, and I don't mean to have any one else's alongside of it! There is my trouble."

"If milor were to hold madame's 'at one side, while I de other, madame might force her emerald parrot pin through him," suggested Marie, which advice was followed, and the widow beamed with satisfaction at the gratifying result.