"If I am going to explain our way of shopping to you," said my companion, as we walked along the street, "you must explain your way to me.

I have never been able to understand it from all I have read on the subject.

For example, when you had such a vast number of shops, each with its different assortment, how could a lady ever settle upon any purchase till she had visited all the shops?
for, until she had, she could not know what there was to choose from." "It was as you suppose; that was the only way she could know," I replied.
"Father calls me an indefatigable shopper, but I should soon be a very fatigued one if I had to do as they did," was Edith's laughing comment.
"The loss of time in going from shop to shop was indeed a waste which the busy bitterly complained of," I said; "but as for the ladies of the idle class, though they complained also, I think the system was really a godsend by furnishing a device to kill time." "But say there were a thousand shops in a city, hundreds, perhaps, of the same sort, how could even the idlest find time to make their rounds ?" "They really could not visit all, of course," I replied.

"Those who did a great deal of buying, learned in time where they might expect to find what they wanted.

This class had made a science of the specialties of the shops, and bought at advantage, always getting the most and best for the least money.