Skull-thatcher

Having been sent to London on a medical trip by his uncle, Mr. Quince, he had become smitten with a fair milliner — a skull-thatcher, anglice, a maker of straw bonnets, but with no more money in her purse than would buy a dose of salts […]

'Which accounts for your frequent attendance, loveliest of skull thatchers!' said Harry in a polite bantering tone, which did not make the intended sarcasm less apparent.