"If people would only not observe him," Vesta said, "I think he would
lay his hat aside; but that is impossible, and all his pride is in the
unending conflict with a law of everlasting society. Who sets a fashion,
we do not know; who dares to set one that is obsolete must be a martyr;
independence no one can practise but a lunatic. Oh, what tyranny exists
that no laws can reach, and how much of society is mere formality!"
Vesta pitied her husband, but the disease was beyond her cure. She had
anticipated some compensation for her marriage, in a larger life and
society, and in the exercise of her mind, especially in art and music;
yet these were purely social things with woman, and the baneful hat was
ever darkening her threshold and closing the vista of every other one.
She meditated escaping from it by a visit to Europe, which her father
had promised her before his embarrassments, and which had been spoken of
by Mr. Milburn as due her in the way of musical perfection.
"Uncle," Rhoda Holland said one day, "do put off that old hat. Aunt
Vesta could love you so much better! People think it is cruel, uncle.
Oh, listen to your wife's heart and not to your pride."
"Stop!" said Milburn. "One more reference to my honest hat and you shall
be sent back to Sinepuxent and Mrs. Somers."
It may have been this dreadful threat, or rising ambition, or the
fascinations of Judge Custis's position and attentions and remarkable
gallantry, that disposed Rhoda to turn her worldly sagacity upon the
father of her friend.
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