During the action of this farce, all had gone from London into exile in Holland. Then came the sudden trip to Newfoundland and the disastrous and speedy return to Holland again. And through the misfortunes and the exiles, the company drew more closely together, and gentle words prevailed; George was “sorie if he had overcarried himself”; Madam “was sure if it were to do now, she would not so wear it.” Still, she did not offer her martinet of a brother-in-law a room to lodge in in her house, though she had many rooms unused, and he needed shelter, whereat he whimpered much; and soon he was charging her again “with Muske as a sin” (musk was at that time in the very height of fashion in France) and cavilling at her unbearable “topish hat.” Then came long argument and sparring for months over “topishness,” which seems to have been deemed a most offensive term. They told its nature and being; they brought in Greek derivatives, and the pastor produced a syllogism upon the word. And they declared that the hat in itself was not topish, but only became so when she wore it, she being the wife of a preacher; and they disputed over velvet and vanity; they bickered over topishness and lightness; they wrangled about lawn coives and busks in a way that was sad to read. The pastor argued soundly, logically, that both coives and busks might be lawfully used; whereat one of his flock, Christopher Dickens, rose up promptly in dire fright and dread of future extravagance among the women-saints in the line of topish hats and coives and busks, and he “begged them not to speak so, and _so loud_, lest it should bring _many inconveniences among their wives_.” Finally the topish head-gear was demanded in court, which the parson declared was “offensive”; and so they bickered on till a most unseemly hour, till _ten o’clock at night_, as “was proved by the watchman and rattleman coming about.” Naturally they wished to go to bed at an early hour, for religious services began at nine; one of the complaints against the topish bride was that she was a “slug-a-bed,” flippantly refused to rise and have her house ordered and ready for the nine o’clock public service. The meetings were then held in the parson’s house, and held every day; which may have been one reason why the settlement grew poorer. It matters little what was said, or how it ended, since it did not disrupt and disband the Holland Pilgrims. For eleven years this stupid wrangling lasted; and it seemed imminent that the settlement would finish with a separation, and a return of many to England. Slight events have great power—this topish hat of a vain and pretty, a peert and coppet young Puritan bride came near to hindering and changing the colonization of America. Lady Mary Armine. Lady Mary Armine.