Before the ball, came Sunday.  Madame du Clozel had told us that the population of the little city—­all Catholics—­was very pious, that the little church could hardly contain the crowd of worshipers; and Celeste had said that there was a grand display of dress there.  We thought of having new dresses made, but the dressmaker declared it impossible; and so we were obliged to wear our camayeus a second time, adding only a lace scarf and a hat.  A hat!  But how could one get in that little town in the wilderness, amid a maze of lakes and bayous, hundreds of miles from New Orleans, so rare and novel a thing as a hat?  Ah, they call necessity the mother of invention, but I declare, from experience, that vanity has performed more miracles of invention, and made greater discoveries than Galileo or Columbus.

The women of St. Martinville, Tonton at their head, had revolted against fate and declared they would have hats if they had to get them at the moon.  Behold, now, by what a simple accident the hat was discovered.  Tonton de Blanc had one of the prettiest complexions in the world, all lily and rose, and what care she took of it!  She never went into the yard or the garden without a sunbonnet and a thick veil.  Yet for all that her jealous critics said she was good and sensible, and would forget everything, even her toilet, to succor any one in trouble.  One day Tonton 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.