like to see it in practical
operation."

"My daughter," he added, turning to me, "is an indefatigable shopper,
and can tell you more about the stores than I can."

The proposition was naturally very agreeable to me, and Edith being
good enough to say that she should be glad to have my company, we left
the house together.

Chapter 10

"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 pub