the house together.

CHAPTER X.

"If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my
companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way
to me. I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on
the subject. For example, when you had such a vast number of shops,
each with its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon
any purchase till she had visited all the shops? for, until she had,
she could not know what there was to choose from."

"It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know," I
replied.

"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a very
fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's laughing
comment.

"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which
the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of
the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was
really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill time."

"But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, of
the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make their
rounds?"

"They really could not visit all, of course," I replied. "Those who
did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to
find what they wanted. This class had made a science of the
specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the
most and best for the least money. It required, however, long
experience to acquire this knowledge. Those who were too busy, or
bought too little to gain it, took their chances and were generally
unfortunate, getting the least and worst for the most money. It was
the merest chance if persons not experienced in shopping received the
value of their money."

"But why did you put up with such a shockingly inconvenient
arrangement when you saw its faults so plainly?" Edith asked me.

"It was like all our social arrangements," I replied. "You can see
their faults scarcely more plainly than we did, but we saw no remedy
for them."

"Here we are at the store of our ward," said Edith, as we turned in at
the great portal of one of the magnificent public buildings I had
observed in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspect
of the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the
nineteenth century. There was no display of goods in the great
windows, or any device to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was
there any sort of