lic buildings I had
observed in my morning walk. There was nothing in the exterior aspect
of the edifice to suggest a store to a representative of the nineteenth
century. There was no display of goods in the great windows, or any
device to advertise wares, or attract custom. Nor was there any sort of
sign or legend on the front of the building to indicate the character
of the business carried on there; but instead, above the portal,
standing out from the front of the building, a majestic life-size group
of statuary, the central figure of which was a female ideal of Plenty,
with her cornucopia. Judging from the composition of the throng passing
in and out, about the same proportion of the sexes among shoppers
obtained as in the nineteenth century. As we entered, Edith said that
there was one of these great distributing establishments in each ward
of the city, so that no residence was more than five or ten minutes'
walk from one of them. It was the first interior of a twentieth-century
public building that I had ever beheld, and the spectacle naturally
impressed me deeply. I was in a vast hall full of light, received not
alone from the windows on all sides, but from the dome, the point of
which was a hundred feet above. Beneath it, in the centre of the hall,
a magnificent fountain played, cooling the atmosphere to a delicious
freshness with its spray. The walls and ceiling were frescoed in mellow
tints, calculated to soften without absorbing the light which flooded
the interior. Around the fountain was a space occupied with chairs and
sofas, on which many persons were seated conversing. Legends on the
walls all about the hall indicated to what classes of commodities the
counters below were devoted. Edith directed her steps towards one of
these, where samples of muslin of a bewildering variety were displayed,
and proceeded to inspect them.

"Where is the clerk?" I asked, for there was no one behind the counter,
and no one seemed coming to attend to the customer.

"I have no need of the clerk yet," said Edith; "I have not made my
selection."

"It was the principal business of clerks to help people to make their
selections in my day," I replied.

"What! To tell people what they wanted?"

"Yes; and oftener to induce them to buy what they didn't want."

"But did not ladies find that very impertinent?" Edith asked,
wonderingly. "What concern could it possibly be to the clerks whether
people bought or not?"

"It was the