Dress was a very serious matter. She had a natural daintiness, a touch that was almost genius. It was a feminine charm which even her husband recognized, and she liked to see him like to look at her. Perhaps he would not now. If she could only have a hat given her, like fortunate Mrs. Beatoun! The window of the temporary shop was filled with a heterogeneous mass of clothing, before which stood a group of hatless women and a few children. Mrs. Briarley nervously pushed her way past them, for she was always afraid of contagion on account of Emily. She became still more nervous on her entrance into the shop. It was filled with a swarm of Italian women, bright-shawled, earringed, swarthy and voluble, fingering the piles of cast-off clothing and chaffering over them. The air was bad, and the two young girls behind the counter looked singularly helpless and distracted. One was sitting down with her head upon her hand, but the other responded to Mrs. Briarley’s proffer of her gifts. “Oh, yes—thank you! _Would_ you please put the price on them yourself? Here are tags and a pencil. Mark them _anything_. I can’t leave this corner for a minute. I never was in such a place! I really don’t know what to do. The young lady who _was_ waiting here—Miss Morley—_fainted_ a few minutes ago,—it’s the air, you know, and the window won’t open,—and Mrs. Whitaker has just taken her home. They say she’s the _second_ one that’s fainted to-day.” “How dreadful!” said Mrs. Briarley, with admiring pity. These were indeed martyrs to the cause. “_Isn’t_ it? Mrs. Whitaker just asked me to come in and stay with Gladys till she got back, and now Gladys has such a headache she isn’t the slightest good, and it all comes on me. I’m only visiting here, and I’ve got to take the three o’clock train home. It puts me in an awful position.” She turned to a couple of wildly gesticulating women. “Yes, you can have that dress for ten cents. No, _no_! Not you; the other one. No, you _didn’t_ speak first! I’ll send for the police if you claw each other.” “Is there anything I can do?” asked Mrs. Briarley. “If you wouldn’t mind unwrapping some of those things over there, and marking them,” said the girl. “I haven’t had time to see to them since they came in. Mark them anything.” “Very well,” said Mrs. Briarley, going deftly about the work. There was a waist and some boys’ clothing, and there was a box, which she left for the last. It looked as if it might contain a hat. It _was_ a hat. A dark hat, yet not too dark, elegant, yet not noticeable, with a chaste outline, a temperate, subdued richness of effect that spoke volumes to the initiated. No wonder that Mrs. Briarley’s eyes were glued to it as she held it in her hand. It was a hat that could rise to the occasion of state garments or impart “style” to one’s ordinary garb. It was a hat, in short, that could be Worn with Anything.