a town. Be that as it may. As you stroll along
Broadway, up from Seventy-second Street, you observe, being a person of
highly alert mind, an astonishing number of circulating libraries,
devoted exclusively to the latest fiction. And you note that all
corner drug stores and all stationers' shops present a window display
of "50-cent fiction." Ah! refinement. Reading people are nice people;
they are not rough people. There is, you feel at once, an air, there
is taste--how shall I say?--selectness, about this part of town. It is
not as other parts of town are.

You perceive, as you continue your stroll with a brightened and a more
perfumed mind, that there are no shoe stores here. Shoo stores!!
"Booteries," these are. Combined with "hosieries." Countless are the
smart hat shops for women. That is to say, the establishments of
"chapeaux importers." In the miniature parlours framed by the windows'
glass these chic and ravishing creations, the chapeaux, rise in a row
high upon their slim and lovely stems. This one is the establishment
of Mlle. Edythe, that of Mme. Vigneau. Countless, too, are the
terrestrial heavens devoted to "gowns." Headless they stand, these
symphonies in feminine apparel, side by side here in the windows of the
Maison la Mode, there of the Maison Estelle. Frequent are the places
where the figure is cultivated with famous corsets, the retreats of
"corsetieres"; this one before you bears the name Fayette; it is where
the model "Madame Pompadour" is sold. And numerous are shops
luxuriating in waists, "blouses," lingerie, and "novelties" of dress.
Conspicuous among them, the "Dolly Dimple Shop." The many "furriers"
here all deal in "exclusive" furs and their names all end in "sky."

And there are roses, roses all the way. That is to say, "roseries,"
"violeteries," and the like--what we call florists' shops, you know.
Spots of gorgeous colour and intense fragrance, heaped high with
orchids, violets, roses, gardenias, or, in some cases, "artificial
flowers."

See! the luscious wax busts in the window. With their grandes
coiffures. And their pink and yellow bosoms resplendent with gems. It
is a hair-dresser's, just as in London, with a gentlemen's parlour at
the back. "Structures" are made here in human hair, and "marcel
waving" is done, not, however, we may suppose, for gentlemen. Here may
be had an "olive oil shampoo," and a "facial massage." One could be
"manicured" in the stroll y