ndsome block of buildings, and I think her exact site is occupied by
the plate-glass windows and gorgeous display of the "Breadalbane
Emporium," where you can buy everything from a frying pan to a
drawing-room suite, but where you cannot get a certain delicacy called
"gundy," which Mrs. McWhae alone could make as it ought to be made, and
at the remembrance thereof the very teeth begin to water. Mrs. McWhae
did not sell books nor clothes, nor any other effeminate luxury of life,
but she kept in stock everything that was really necessary to the life
of a well-living and high-minded boy. There he could obtain marbles from
the common clay, six for a halfpenny, on to the finer "streakies," six
for a penny, till you came to large marbles with a red and blue pattern
on a white ground, which were a halfpenny each, and climbed to
"glassies" at a penny each; and there was one glass leviathian which
contained all colours within its sphere, and which was kept only to be
handled and admired. Tops were there, too, from polished little
beauties with shining steel tips, which were intended only for
amusement, and were spun with fine white cord, to unadorned, massive,
vicious-looking warriors with sharpened projecting points, which were
intended for the battlefield, and were spun with rough, strong twine,
and which, dexterously used, would split another top from head to foot
as when you slice butter with a knife. Her stock of kites in the season
was something to see, and although she did not venture upon
cricket-bats, which were sold by the hair-dresser, nor cricket-balls,
she had every other kind of ball--solid gutta-percha balls, for hasty
games in the "breaks," white skin-covered rounder balls, and hollow
india-rubber balls, which you could fill with water at the lade, and
then use with much success as a squirt. Girls, we noticed, employed this
"softie" in silly games of their own, trying whether they could make it
rebound a hundred times from the ground, but we had no doubt about its
proper use in the purposes of Creation. And Mrs. McWhae--peace to her
ashes!--provided all things in meat and drink which a boy could desire;
unless, of course, on some great occasion he wished to revel
imperially--then he went to Fenwick's rock-shop, where generations have
turned their eager feet, and beyond which nothing is left to desire.
Fenwick's, however, was rather for our fathers than for ourselves, and
we were almost content with Mrs. McWhae, whe