h fewer tremendous sacrifices in our shops!

Brown, Jones, and Robinson, when they had been established some six
or eight months, had managed to procure from a house in the silk
trade a few black silk mantles of a very superior description. The
lot had been a remnant, and had been obtained with sundry other goods
at a low figure. But, nevertheless, the proper price at which the
house could afford to sell them would exceed the mark of general
purchasers in Bishopsgate Street. These came into Mr. Jones' hands,
and he immediately resolved to use them for the purposes of the
window. Some half-dozen of them were very tastefully arranged upon
racks, and were marked at prices which were very tempting to ladies
of discernment. In the middle of one window there was a copious
mantle, of silk so thick that it stood almost alone, very full in
its dimensions, and admirable in its fashion. This mantle, which
would not have been dearly bought for 3_l._ 10_s._ or 4_l._, was
injudiciously ticketed at 38_s._ 11-1/2_d._ "It will bring dozens of
women to the shop," said Jones, "and we have an article of the same
shape and colour, which we can do at that price uncommonly well."
Whether or no the mantle had brought dozens of women into the shop,
cannot now be said, but it certainly brought one there whom Brown,
Jones, and Robinson will long remember.

Mrs. Morony was an Irishwoman who, as she assured the magistrates in
Worship Street, had lived in the very highest circles in Limerick,
and had come from a princely stock in the neighbouring county of
Glare. She was a full-sized lady, not without a certain amount
of good looks, though at the period of her intended purchase in
Bishopsgate Street, she must have been nearer fifty than forty. Her
face was florid, if not red, her arms were thick and powerful, her
eyes were bright, but, as seen by Brown, Jones, and Robinson, not
pleasant to the view, and she always carried with her an air of
undaunted resolution. When she entered the shop, she was accompanied
by a thin, acrid, unmarried female friend, whose feminine charms by
no means equalled her own. She might be of about the same age, but
she had more of the air and manner of advanced years. Her nose was
long, narrow and red; her eyes were set very near together; she was
tall and skimpy in all her proportions; and her name was Miss Biles.
Of the name and station of Mrs. Morony, or of Miss Biles, nothing
was of course known when they entered the