washed and bleached. Then, marshalled in
dozens, it journeys back to Cheapside to be
thence distributed

        Far as the breeze can bear the billow's foam.

By meeting all tastes, and descending to
pocket-handkerchiefs at a little more than
three farthings a-piece, Ashstock, Ahrab and
Co. manage to sell, in the course of the year,
something like three million of them; that
is to say rather more than three hundred
and fifty acres of lawn and cambric; yet,
before the spinning-jenny beat the spinning-
wheel, a cambric pocket-handkerchief in the
hand of a village maiden was as great a
rarity as a pair of silk stockings in the days
of Queen Bess.

The boxes by which ladies, on shopping
thoughts intent, are craftily seduced into
buying a dozen at a time, all ready marked
with the name Annie or Bessie, and so on
through the alphabet, are no longer of the
plainest description. The march of luxury
has transformed them into works of art;
moulded them in elegant forms, and adorned
them with coloured pictures of the interesting
events of the day—royal marriages
and interviews, portraits of princesses and
heroes, views of shipwrecks and battles.
The Great Exhibition afforded a good many
subjects: the Turkish alliance, the Sultan, and
Omar Pasha have had their day; as also Alma
and Inkermann. At the date of our inquisitorial
progress, the Emperor and Empress of the
French, with scenes from the Queen's visit to
Paris, were in high favour. The taking of
Sebastopol will probably follow. These boxes,
once given with the handkerchiefs, have now
a distinct wholesale value of from sixpence to
ten shillings and sixpence each.

The next step was into a snowy armoury;
where a wonderful variety of embroidered
muslins, dresses (from the Glasgow branch
manufactory) for wedding, christening, ball,
or any other occasion where white is
imperative, were arranged in such numbers
as to be truly distracting. Full-flounced
robes, gorgeous in their blanch extravagance
of tambouring and embroidery, were to
be had at ten and fifteen pounds each; but,
the great trade is in our favourite plain
tucked robes, of which thousands were
annually distributed among our rising beauties
at from seven to ten shillings each. Imagine
the astonishment of our grandmothers at
hearing of a ball-dress at half-a-guinea! "We
calculated that Ashstock and Ahrab sell
annually about fifty acres of muslin dresses,
without counting roods of cambric collars
from fourpence halfpenny upwards, and miles
of habit-shirts, chemisettes, jabots, cuffs,
sleeves, mantles, and jackets.

Curtains for cottages were once an
unknown luxury, unless in common calico, but
we found, in the muslin department, that the
march of machinery had produced embroidered
muslin curtains at two shillings and
sixpence per pair; while plate-glass four-
windowed drawing-rooms could be
accommodated at eighteen pounds.

Mourning—both light and deep affliction
departments—came next; and there, amid
crape in all shapes of dress and all degrees of
fineness, with bugles worthy of Hamlet, we
found that the largest trade was in servants'
black caps at three farthings a-piece, and
plain linen collars at the same price.

Marching steadily on, we successively
passed the department of cap fronts, of cauls
—not the natural article occasionally advertised
in the Times at fifteen pounds, and
specially recommended to sea-captains—but
white net, supplied at fifteen pence the dozen,
and nightcaps too, from the very plainest to
the most insinuating that ever adorned a rosy
morning face. In caps, not nightcaps, the
Swedish Nightingale's seems the favourite
name, judging by the trade thermometer; for
the sale last year in white and black Jenny
Linds was over a hundred thousand dozen.
We roughly estimated the weight of caps of
all kinds sold annually at this single shop
at two hundred tons,

Next, ribands in all the colours of the
rainbow—of silk, satin and velvet—the best
work of Coventry and Lyons, made the
counters gay as flower-beds. What a delightful
addition to a collar is a becoming neck-
riband of bright harmonious colours, Parisian
women of all grades well know. The attendant
in this department told us, with a professional
sigh of regret, that his stock was
very dead, as broad ribands were all the
rage. Passing from gay ribands, a regiment
of grave cloaks were reviewed. Cloaks
of all materials; cotton velvet, silk velvet,
satin and moir6 antique, cloth, in admirable
sober colours (when shall we have a revival,
for the streets, of the charming red riding-hood
cloaks of our youth?) alpacas, and mixed
mysterious textures with names to match.
All tastes and pockets were to be suited;
expense-no-object could be satisfied, while the
real use of a winter's cloak, warmth, was
amply fulfilled in capital woollen imitation
of bear-skins neatly trimmed, at five shillings
each.

Baby linen came next; organised on a scale
sufficiently large to provide for all the nurseries
in the kingdom at a moment's notice.
There were doll-like shirts at sixpence, and
also at sixteen shillings; long robes at four
shillings and at ten pounds each (more Scotch
and Irish peasant embroidery); Lilliputian
silk-embroidered merino shoes, which a
young lady with a very new white bonnet
pronounced perfect ducks; pincushions—those
monuments of increasing nurseries—at from
ninepence to a guinea; and all the other
paraphernalia that are called into use by the
wonder of every family, the baby!
Bassinettes, at fabulous prices, and caps of satin
with or without cockade, pictured babyhood
in every corner of the department.