magnificent tart and cake that could excite
a boy's appetite. The splendour of the
puffs, bursting raspberry jam through
crevices in which we noticed a homely
likeness to button-holes, nearly drove us to
frenzy. Local swells, consuming ices,
patties, soups, respecting which forms of
refreshment there were maddening legends in
the windows, goaded us into insane desires
to challenge them to come forth into the
street, and have it out, and not sit there,
standing nothing for anybody, and gorging
themselves like Ogres. We very seldom
got further than the window of this
particular paradise. Business was conducted
on ready-money principles here, and it was
the only neighbouring establishment of the
kind where we couldn't get tick.

It delights us, now that we have left
that school and are a pupil in a wider and
a harder one, in which rather more is
learnt, to walk down one of the great
West-end shop streets in the morning
before the whirl of aristocratic purchasers
and gazers has set in. The streets are
comparatively empty. No roll of carriages
disturbs the peripatetic philosopher. There
is (we speak of the early summer— the
pleasantest time in London) a sprinkling
of water going on in front of the shops,
which is cool and refreshing. The windows
present even greater attractions at such
times than they do later in the day. The
elegant, but haughty, gentlemen who attend
the customers, may now be seen coatless,
filling the shop fronts with choice and
attractive goods. Likewise, charming young
ladies, their hair dressed in the height of
the latest fashion, their costumes of the
trimmest and neatest, are engaged in the
delightful task of dressing the windows.
But a gentle melancholy fills the soul and
a pensive doubt respecting the reality of
many appearances haunts the mind, when
we observe that what, a couple of hours
hence, will be the counterfeit presentment of
the coated torso of a gentleman of the first
fashion, is now a block of sackcloth and
leather, roughly dusted with a cane; and
eke that the flowing outline of a magnificent
woman in an Indian shawl is but a
rigid stand of iron wire, like the cage of a
Cockatoo in very reduced circumstances.

Who buys all this jewellery? Here,
within a stone's throw— within a stone's
throw? say rather cheek by jowl— are
half-a-dozen jewellers' shops with fortunes
displayed in each of their windows. Somebody
must have fortunes to buy up these
fortunes. Who is it that is not satisfied
with spending his money on diamonds and
pearls, bracelets, rings, and necklaces, but
requires a silver porcupine with ruby eyes
to hold his toothpicks, or an owl of great
price for his wax matches ? Facetious pins,
bearing devices of the rebus order, or
miniature pint pots, splinter-bars, tobacco-
pipes, death's heads, dice, must offer
attractions to somebody. All these silver
cups and flagons are not manufactured
solely for the edification of street loungers
like ourself. There must be a market
somewhere for those suites of diamonds, those
glancing emeralds, those strings of mellow,
moonlight pearls. Would that we might
make them our own ! Perhaps, on reflection
though, we are better off without them.
Perhaps if we had them we should be
tortured with fears of losing them, and
perhaps they will give less pleasure to their
possessors than to us staring at them as
they repose publicly in their blue, or white,
or maroon velvet boxes.

Consider, with admiration not unmixed
with astonishment, this amazing garment
at the draper's next door. It is white, and
appears to be composed of satin as to the
skirt, which is, however, by no means its
most important part. It is excessively
long and remarkably inconvenient; but
with that exception it is scanty. Clouds
of gauzy tulle float from it. Bunches and
bows (for which there are doubtless technical
terms, unknown to us) cover it in all
directions. It surely is not a dress very
admirably adapted to a crowded room.
We can see it towards the close of the
evening's campaign, a mere skirt, and a
hopeless tangled mass of diaphanous ruin.
Now, that other dress, also white, but with
certain blue adornments, is evidently meant
for dancing, and for plenty of it. It is short
and sensible. Why, if this be sanctioned
by fashion— and we suppose it must be or
it would not be here— should ladies inflict,
on their unfortunate partners yards upon
yards of unmanageable trains?

Here, in the bonnet shop, is another
peculiarity to be remarked. What can be
prettier than the ladies' hat of the present
fashion? It is an elegant, sensible, useful
head gear, becoming to a pretty face, and
not trying to a plain face. Contrast it
with what is called a bonnet. An object
useless, unmeaning, and inartistic to the last
degree. There must be something remarkable
in the female mind that induces it to
prefer this miserable complication of odds
and ends to the simplicity of the hat.

Ha! A pleasant odour! The fashionable