Bridgie looked charming in all, her small head and cloud-like hair making her an easy person to suit, but, alas! the prices still seemed ruinous to her innocent mind, and she sadly turned her attention to the more simple of the models. These were by no means so becoming as their predecessors, and Pixie's criticisms were as usual strictly truthful as she regarded them. "Ye look a fright. Ye look old enough to be your own mother. It takes all the colour out of your face. You look quite yellow!" Bridgie tore the hat from her head, and seized upon a modest brown toque which lay close at hand. "Is that better, then? Is that dowdy enough to suit you?" "It's hidjus!" cried Pixie with emphasis. "It's uglier than the other. I wouldn't have it given to me as a present. You look an object from the side!" "But it's useful--it is useful!" sighed Bridgie dejectedly. Buying hats was not so exciting as she had imagined if she were obliged to abjure the pretty ones, and buy the useful in which she appeared to such painful disadvantage. "And I expect it is cheap, Pixie. Very cheap! I have, to think of that, remember!" She tilted the hand-glass to the side to study the effect which had been condemned, and as she did so, a sepulchral voice said grimly in her ear, "When you have quite finished with my hat!" and she turned to behold a severe-looking, elderly lady staring fixedly at her headgear, and holding out her hand to claim it as her own. Poor Bridgie! her cheeks flamed for the next hour. She was so hot, and breathless, and agitated that she would have rushed straightway from the department, but Pixie stood her ground and remained serenely unperturbed. "'Twas true!" she cried. "'Twas only the truth she heard. _'Twas_ hidjus, and no words of yours would make it pretty. And as for cheap, she ought to take that for a compliment, seeing the pains she's taking to get another like it! Somebody must be trying on your own hat, I'm thinking. It was lying over the rail of that chair where the fat lady is resting. You'd better be asking her what she's done with it." Bridgie walked forward and put an anxious Inquiry, whereupon the fat lady leapt up in alarm, and there against the back of the chair lay a poor flattened object, with battered crown and crestfallen bows--all that was left of Bridgie's very best hat! She was horrified at the sight, but the fat lady was more horrified still, and so lavish in her apologies that it was impossible to cherish anger against her. She insisted upon herself smoothing out the ribbons and moulding the crown into something like the original shape, and in doing so bestowed the information that there was another millinery department downstairs, where there might possibly be less crowd and more chance of attention. CHAPTER FOURTEEN. "A FRENCH LADY."