ses rise, shadowy and magnificent, above the
modern terraces; Don Saltero's Coffee-House yet opens its hospitable
doors; Sir Thomas More meditates again on Cheyne Walk; at dead of
night the ghosts of ancient minuet tunes may be heard from the Rotunda
of Ranelagh Gardens, though the new barracks stand upon its site; and
along the modern streets you may fancy that if you saw the ladies with
their hoop petticoats, and the gentlemen with their wigs and their
three-cornered hats and swords, you would not be in the least
astonished.

Emblem's is one of two or three shops which stand together, but it
differs from its neighbors in many important particulars. For it has
no plate-glass, as the others have; nor does it stand like them with
open doors; nor does it flare away gas at night; nor is it bright with
gilding and fresh paint; nor does it seek to attract notice by posters
and bills. On the contrary, it retains the old, small, and
unpretending panes of glass which it has always had; in the evening it
is dimly lighted, and it closes early; its door is always shut, and
although the name over the shop is dingy, one feels that a coat of
paint, while it would certainly freshen up the place, would take
something from its character. For a second-hand bookseller who
respects himself must present an exterior which has something of faded
splendor, of worn paint and shabbiness. Within the shop, books line
the walls and cumber the floor. There are an outer and an inner shop;
in the former a small table stands among the books, at which Mr.
James, the assistant, is always at work cataloguing, when he is not
tying up parcels; sometimes even with gum and paste repairing the
slighter ravages of time--foxed bindings and close-cut margins no man
can repair. In the latter, which is Mr. Emblem's sanctum, there are
chairs and a table, also covered with books, a writing-desk, a small
safe, and a glass case, wherein are secured the more costly books in
stock. Emblem's, as must be confessed, is no longer quite what it was
in former days; twenty, thirty, or forty years ago that glass case was
filled with precious treasures. In those days, if a man wanted a book
of county history, or of genealogy, or of heraldry, he knew where was
his best chance of finding it, for Emblem's, in its prime and heyday,
had its specialty. Other books treating on more frivolous subjects,
such as science, belles lettres, art, or politics, he would consider,
buy, and sell a