Shopping.

Abundant opportunity is afforded those who have occasion to visit
emporiums of art and fashion on shopping designs intent. The flashing
establishments under the large hotels, as well as several others in
the village, cater entirely to the fashionable visitor. Everything
desirable in the way of laces, feathers, diamonds and ornaments, and
elegant dress goods are obtainable. It is the custom of many of the
fashionable merchants and _modistes_ of New York to open here during
the summer, branch establishments for the sale of their specialities.
There are numerous resident stores also, which would not disgrace New
York or Boston; among these the house of H. Van Deusen, on Broadway
and Phila street, near the Post-Office, takes the lead. During the
warm season, the Saratoga Broadway glitters with the brilliant display
in shop windows, and the gorgeous exhibition of goods upon the
sidewalks.

Evening.

It is only in the evening that Saratoga is in full bloom. When--

"---- night throughout the gelid air,
Veils with her sable wings the solar glare;
When modest Cynthia clad in silver light
Expands her beauty on the brow of night,
Sheds her soft beams upon the mountain side,
Peeps through the wood and quivers on the tide,"

then faces light up with the gas lamps. The parlors begin to fill with
elegantly attired ladies, the piazzas are thronged with chatty and
sociable gentlemen, and the streets are crowded, far more than they
are in the daytime, by pleasure strollers of either sex in elegant
array. The ball-room becomes radiant with costly chandeliers whose
effulgence is reflected by diamonds of the first water.

One dark evening, at the height of last season, in the midst of the
preparations for a brilliant ball, the gas which supplies the whole
village became suddenly exhausted. Candles were the only resource, and
there was by some mischance a limited supply of these. Bottles were
improvised for candlesticks, and stationed in the corners and on the
pianos of the massive parlors, rendering the scene grotesque and
ludicrous in the extreme, while the closer nestling of lovers and the
solemn stillness reigning on every hand gave sublimity to the picture.
The poet Saxe happened to be among the guests at Congress Hall, and
borrowed a candle from a pretty young lady. The next morning she found
under her door the following beautiful lines:

"You gave me a candle; I give you my thanks