IN THE DAYS OF CRINOLINE

A plain tilt-bonnet on her head

She took the path across the leaze.

- Her spouse the vicar, gardening, said,

“Too dowdy that, for coquetries,

So I can hoe at ease.

But when she had passed into the heath,

And gained the wood beyond the flat,

She raised her skirts, and from beneath

Unpinned and drew as from a sheath

An ostrich-feathered hat.

And where the hat had hung she now

Concealed and pinned the dowdy hood,

And set the hat upon her brow,

And thus emerging from the wood

Tripped on in jaunty mood.

The sun was low and crimson-faced

As two came that way from the town,

And plunged into the wood untraced...

When separately therefrom they paced

The sun had quite gone down.

The hat and feather disappeared,

The dowdy hood again was donned,

And in the gloom the fair one neared

Her home and husband dour, who conned

Calmly his blue-eyed blonde.

“To-day,” he said, “you have shown good sense,

A dress so modest and so meek

Should always deck your goings hence

Alone.” And as a recompense

He kissed her on the cheek.