ew the happiness of swarming with other women round a big table piled
with remnants of rumpled table-linen, mis-mated towels and soiled
dresser-scarfs, or the pleasure of carrying off the bolt of last fall's
ribbon on which another woman had her eye; nor had she the proud
satisfaction of bringing home to her unfortunate partner a shirt with a
bosom like a checker-board, that had been marked down to sixty-three
cents. But history, since her day, is not lacking in bargains of various
kinds, of which woman has had her share, though no doubt Anniversary
Sales, Sensational Mill End Sales, and Railroad Wreck Sales are
comparatively modern.

A woman's pleasure in a good bargain is akin to the rapture engendered
in the feminine bosom by successful smuggling. It is perhaps a purer
joy. The satisfaction of acquiring something one does not need, or of
buying an article which one may have some use for in the future, simply
because it is cheap or because Mrs. X. paid seventeen cents more for the
same thing at a bargain-sale, can not be understood by a mere man.

Once in a while some stupid masculine creature endeavors to show his
wife that she is losing the use of her money by tying it up in
embroideries for decorating cotton which is still in the fields of the
South, or laying it out in summer dress-goods when snow-storms can not
be far distant. The use of her money forsooth! What is money for except
to spend? And if she didn't buy embroideries and dimities, she would
purchase something else with it.

So she goes on hunting bargains, or rather profiting by those that come
in her way, for generally it is not necessary to search for them. These
little snares of the merchant are only too common in this age, when
everything from cruisers to clothes-pins and pianos to prunes may often
be had at a stupendous sacrifice.

A man usually goes to a shop where he believes that he will run little
or no risk of being deceived in the quality of the goods, even though
prices be higher there than at some other places. A woman thinks she
knows a bargain when she sees it.

She is aware that the store-keeper has craftily spread his web of
bargains, hoping that when lured into his shop she will buy other things
not bargains. But she determines beforehand that she will not be cajoled
into purchasing anything but the particular bargain of her
desire,--unless--unless she sees something else which she really wants.
And generally, she sees something el