course; there was the name of the proprietor 'and Co.' in gilt letters,
almost too dazzling to look at. Such ribbons and shawls! and two such
elegant young men behind the counter, each in a clean collar and white
neckcloth, like the lover in a farce. As to the proprietor, he did
nothing but walk up and down the shop, and hand seats to the ladies, and
hold important conversations with the handsomest of the young men, who
was shrewdly suspected by the neighbours to be the 'Co.' We saw all this
with sorrow; we felt a fatal presentiment that the shop was doomed--and
so it was. Its decay was slow, but sure. Tickets gradually appeared in
the windows; then rolls of flannel, with labels on them, were stuck
outside the door; then a bill was pasted on the street-door, intimating
that the first floor was to let unfurnished; then one of the young men
disappeared altogether, and the other took to a black neckerchief, and
the proprietor took to drinking. The shop became dirty, broken panes of
glass remained unmended, and the stock disappeared piecemeal. At last
the company's man came to cut off the water, and then the linen-draper
cut off himself, leaving the landlord his compliments and the key.

The next occupant was a fancy stationer. The shop was more modestly
painted than before, still it was neat; but somehow we always thought, as
we passed, that it looked like a poor and struggling concern. We wished
the man well, but we trembled for his success. He was a widower
evidently, and had employment elsewhere, for he passed us every morning
on his road to the city. The business was carried on by his eldest
daughter. Poor girl! she needed no assistance. We occasionally caught a
glimpse of two or three children, in mourning like herself, as they sat
in the little parlour behind the shop; and we never passed at night
without seeing the eldest girl at work, either for them, or in making
some elegant little trifle for sale. We often thought, as her pale face
looked more sad and pensive in the dim candle-light, that if those
thoughtless females who interfere with the miserable market of poor
creatures such as these, knew but one-half of the misery they suffer, and
the bitter privations they endure, in their honourable attempts to earn a
scanty subsistence, they would, perhaps, resign even opportunities for
the gratification of vanity, and an immodest love of self-display, rather
than drive them to a last dreadful resource, whic