he would
find "The Fair."

The nature of these vast retail combinations, should they ever
permanently disappear, will form an interesting chapter in the
commercial history of our nation. Such a flowering out of a modest trade
principle the world had never witnessed up to that time. They were along
the line of the most effective retail organisation, with hundreds of
stores coordinated into one and laid out upon the most imposing and
economic basis. They were handsome, bustling, successful affairs, with
a host of clerks and a swarm of patrons. Carrie passed along the busy
aisles, much affected by the remarkable displays of trinkets, dress
goods, stationery, and jewelry. Each separate counter was a show place
of dazzling interest and attraction. She could not help feeling the
claim of each trinket and valuable upon her personally, and yet she did
not stop. There was nothing there which she could not have used--nothing
which she did not long to own. The dainty slippers and stockings,
the delicately frilled skirts and petticoats, the laces, ribbons,
hair-combs, purses, all touched her with individual desire, and she felt
keenly the fact that not any of these things were in the range of her
purchase. She was a work-seeker, an outcast without employment, one whom
the average employee could tell at a glance was poor and in need of a
situation.

It must not be thought that any one could have mistaken her for a
nervous, sensitive, high-strung nature, cast unduly upon a cold,
calculating, and unpoetic world. Such certainly she was not. But women
are peculiarly sensitive to their adornment.

Not only did Carrie feel the drag of desire for all which was new and
pleasing in apparel for women, but she noticed too, with a touch at the
heart, the fine ladies who elbowed and ignored her, brushing past in
utter disregard of her presence, themselves eagerly enlisted in the
materials which the store contained. Carrie was not familiar with the
appearance of her more fortunate sisters of the city. Neither had she
before known the nature and appearance of the shop girls with whom she
now compared poorly. They were pretty in the main, some even handsome,
with an air of independence and indifference which added, in the case of
the more favoured, a certain piquancy. Their clothes were neat, in many
instances fine, and wherever she encountered the eye of one it was only
to recognise in it a keen analysis of her own position--her individual
sho