ecially was it provided with
one of those half-doors now so rarely met with, which are to whole doors
as spencers worn by old folk are to coats. They speak of limited
commerce united with a social or observing disposition--on the part of
the shopkeeper,--allowing, as they do, talk with passers-by, yet keeping
off such as have not the excuse of business to cross the threshold. On
the door-posts, at either side, above the half-door, hung certain
perennial articles of merchandise, of which my memory still has hanging
among its faded photographs a kind of netted scarf and some pairs of
thick woollen stockings. More articles, but not very many, were stored
inside; and there was one drawer, containing children's books, out of
which I once was treated to a minute quarto ornamented with handsome
cuts. This was the only purchase I ever knew to be made at the shop kept
by the three maiden ladies, though it is probable there were others. So
long as I remember the shop, the same scarf and, I should say, the same
stockings hung on the door-posts.--You think I am exaggerating again, and
that shopkeepers would not keep the same article exposed for years. Come
to me, the Professor, and I will take you in five minutes to a shop in
this city where I will show you an article hanging now in the very place
where more than thirty years ago I myself inquired the price of it of the
present head of the establishment. [ This was a glass alembic, which hung
up in Daniel Henchman's apothecary shop, corner of Cambridge and Chambers
streets.]

The three maidens were of comely presence, and one of them had had claims
to be considered a Beauty. When I saw them in the old meeting-house on
Sundays, as they rustled in through the aisles in silks and satins, not
gay, but more than decent, as I remember them, I thought of My Lady
Bountiful in the history of "Little King Pippin," and of the Madam Blaize
of Goldsmith (who, by the way, must have taken the hint of it from a
pleasant poem, "Monsieur de la Palisse," attributed to De la Monnoye, in
the collection of French songs before me). There was some story of an
old romance in which the Beauty had played her part. Perhaps they all
had had lovers; for, as I said, they were shapely and seemly personages,
as I remember them; but their lives were out of the flower and in the
berry at the time of my first recollections.

One after another they all three dropped away, objects of kindly
attention to the g