All this dreadful traffic in my murdered comrades, and their display in the glass cases as well as on the heads of the customers, naturally made me very sad, and I now looked with aversion at every woman who entered the store.  But that all were not heartless fiends who were robed in feminine garb I found out another day when a daintily dressed lady came in to purchase a winter hat.  The contents of the glass cases were looked over critically for some time before she selected one which she tried on before the long mirror.  The milliner, who deftly adjusted it for her, tipping it first forward a little, then setting it back a trifle, stood off now to view the effect, at the same time assuring her how beautiful it was, and how vastly becoming to her.

“I like this hat very much,” said the lady; “or at least I shall like it when the bird is taken off.”

“You think the oriole too gay?  Orange is quite the vogue,” answered the milliner, who seemed reluctant to make any change, and yet was anxious to please her customer.  “Perhaps you’d prefer some wings; or stay, here is a sweet little gull that will go all right with the rest of the trimming.  We will take off the oriole if you wish.”

“Thank you, but I have decided not to wear birds any more,” said the customer.

“But the effect would be quite spoiled without a wing, or an aigrette, or something there,” exclaimed the milliner.  “You wouldn’t like it.  I wouldn’t think of taking off the bird, if I were you.”

“Yes, I shall like it much better with the bird off,” returned the lady quietly.  “I have sufficient sins to answer for without any longer adding the crime of bird slaughter to the list.”

The milliner bestowed on her a pitying smile, but evidently was too politic to get into a discussion of an unpleasant subject.  Having given her final order for the hat, the lady crossed over to the other side of the room and shook hands with a friend whom she addressed as Mrs. Brown, who had just come in and was making a purchase at the lace counter.

“I have been putting my new resolution into effect,” she remarked after the first greetings; “I have just ordered my new hat, and it is not to have a bird or a wing or a tail on it.”

“Oh, I’m glad to hear of one convert to the gospel of mercy,” said Mrs. Brown heartily.  “The apathy of our women on this subject is heart-sickening.  Men are denouncing us; the newspapers are full of our cruelty; the pulpit makes our heartlessness its theme; and yet we keep on with our barbarous work with an indifference that must make the angels weep.”

Her face glowed with righteous indignation.  It was easy to see that any cause to which she might commit herself was sure of an ardent and untiring champion.

“But they tell me that chicken feathers, and those of other domestic fowls are being largely used now instead of birds,” said the other lady.