f nothing else. If I had
to choose between, I believe I'd rather see it than Niagara Falls; for
one knows Niagara Falls from biographs and things, and nothing short of
actually seeing could give one the slightest idea of Mr. Whit Walker
and his Emporium.

My first impression of the Emporium was a huge, rambling wooden
building rather like a vast barn with a dozen smaller barns tacked on
to it, and windows let in. It is painted pea-green, and has a rough
verandah running partly round it--a high verandah with no steps, or if
any, at such long intervals that you must search for them. But as
there's no pavement we just scrambled out of the buggy and cart onto
the verandah, and there we were landed among the most extraordinary
collection of things I ever dreamed of. The stock in the Emporium
having overflowed from the inside onto the verandah, we stumbled about
among boxes of eggs, sewing machines, crates of dishes, garden tools,
brooms, rocking chairs, perambulators, boots, "canned" fruit,
children's toys, luggage, green vegetables, ice cream freezers, bales
of calico, men's suits, piled-up books, clothes lines, and a thousand
other "goods."

A number of young men were sitting about on the biggest of the boxes,
and on chicken coops, wherever they could clear a space, and had the
air of being in a club. Our party knew them, almost all, and they
exchanged "how do you do's." Mr. Brett seemed the only stranger; but as
he told me, he hasn't often visited his cousins.

From the open doors and windows of the Emporium streamed out the
strangely mingled smells of all the things in the world which happened
to be missing on the verandah, and most of those that were there. As a
fragrance it was indescribable, but it was nice, and rather exciting, I
don't know why, unless there was a quantity of spice in it.

Just as we threaded our way through the groups of young men, who looked
at us a good deal, people were lighting the gas in the Emporium. It was
incandescent, and blazed up suddenly with a fierce light as if it were
a volcano having an eruption. All the women inside (there was quite a
crowd of them, bareheaded, or in perfectly fascinating frilled
sunbonnets), shrieked and then giggled. A man who was surrounded by
girls said something we couldn't hear, which made everybody laugh; and
Mr. Trowbridge exclaimed:

"That's Whit, sure, holding court. Couldn't be anybody else."

"And I guess that's the Honourable," said the voice we