with pencils and currency; tricks and jokessuch as serve to keep these ubiquitous juveniles in good spirits. Here each purchase is remeasured, and each check certified to prevent mistakes, or fancied ones. This is the main artery

of the great "cash" system, for which Stewart's is distinguished. In these days six months' accounts are out of date; a thing of the past, and the Reade Street dynasty. Bordering this desk, or series of desks, on the inner side, in the third division, we have the silk department, under the immediate care of an untiring and gentlemanly guide through these unaccustomed labyrinths. And here we are dazzled by a display of delicate and gorgeous fabrics, which never meet the eye of a passing, transient customer, reserved for the occupants of cushioned equipages, which would save them from contact with the dust, and whose owners count their incomes by tens of thousands. Some of these could only be seen in their full perfection by the aid of artificial light, under which they are intended to be worn. They were shown to us in a separate apartment, from which the daylight is entirely excluded, lighted brilliantly by jets of gas, and arranged for an effective display of drapery. But we must not trench on the borders of the "fashion chitchat," wherein all these beauties will be found in detail, but pass around the several counters of this department, to which the upper end of two divisions is assigned, not failing to notice "the remnant counter"-dear to a woman's heart, be she rich or poor, for the love of bargains is inherent with the sex.

A similar arrangement is noticeable in the department of woollens; and thus the stock is kept "clear," and customers are made happy.

Opposite the first portion of the silk department is the stock of cotton goods-muslins, cambrics, etc.; and adjoining it, just at the present season, the popular stock of the housekeeping department; that is, table linen, etc., of moderate prices, in large demand. Passing through to the one remaining division, also entered from Broadway, we find cloths or materials for the wear of men and boys opposite to a general gentlemen's furnishing department, and at the other end, a long range of gentlemen's hosiery on one side, and ladies' on the other.

To return to the staircase rising from the last division; it is broad, with shallow steps and a plain but handsome balustrade. On the landing, half way up, we pause for a coup d'œil of the busy sparkling scene below. Now we have a full view of the saloon itself; the light

and tasteful frescoes on wall and ceiling; the gilded chandeliers with grand glass globes; the graceful Corinthian columns, all of iron, that support the floor above; the innumerable plateglass windows, with the pale blue tint pervading the light that painters seek to soften an atmosphere, or tone down color; the gayly dressed, restless, ever-changing throng, like a waving tulip-bed, or the glittering of a kaleidoscope, with an ascending hum that marks a hive of human activity and industry.

The second floor resembles the first in its essential features, save that there are fewer departments and more space. We enter the cloak room, from the staircase where are displayed cloaks of every grade and description, from the street wrap to the delicate cloth or cashmere opera cloaks, of snowy white, crimson lined, and gayly tasselled, that hang in the convenient wardrobes with sliding doors, that line the wall.

Next to this are shawls of lower grades, the neat stella and the comfortable plaid; beyond, in the inner shrine, and exposed to the best light, those marvels of Eastern industry, and Western expenditure, camels' hair shawls and scarfs. Here are displayed to our delighted eyes the graceful combinations of the French looms, and the prouder glories of the "real India," the cost commencing in price at $100 and reaching a climax in this heavy drapery of quaint design valued at $2000. Here we longed to share our morning's experience with other friends, who have an instinctive love for shawls as well as bargains; here we craved, with the last trace of feminine malice, to prove to Mrs. White that her boasted India was only French, and to show Mrs. Black, who had strained her allowance and curtailed her children's winter wardrobes for her one hundred and fifty dollar shawl, how coarse and inferior it was after all, by the side of five and seven hundred dollar cashmeres. How much better it would have been, considering her own position and her husband's means, to have satisfied herself with one of those soft graceful French cashmeres at $50, either that bride-like white centre with its deep gray and black border, or this rich combination of gold and green, and brown and scarlet, in such wondrous toning and perfect harmony, leaving to Mrs. Smith and Jones, whose husbands are mining gold in Wall Street or California, the triumph duly belonging to an immoderate unstinted income.

Their fairy like frostings of lace draperies indicate an approach to the upholstery, but first we have furs, ermine, sable, mink and

Siberian gray, then we come upon the heavier stuffs for curtains, the reps, drougets, the satin laine, the pure satin, the rich brocade, and the wonderful "cloth of gold," produced from its hidden niche, of real bullion garlanded with silken blossoms such as we find in "kings' houses," or the Fifth Avenue and Walnut Street palaces of the ladies just alluded to. Only $50 a yard! and how many yards to a lounge, a sofa, or fauteuil! There is a sense of freshness and simplicity in the neat furniture chintzes, and twilled stripes for covers, in the immediate neighborhood, and we pass to the housekeeping department beyond, with its dainty wealth of table damask and luxurious blankets, or the plainer grades of every article. Flannels opposite. And now we beg as an especial favor, since we have reviewed this large display of selections for the daily wants of domestic life, that we may be admitted to the great work rooms we have heard exist above us, yet so silent and secluded in their operations that not one in ten of the "oldest customers' guesses their existence.

Our amiable conductor kindly procures for us the desired permission, and leads to the story above, which is occupied as a store-room for the reserved stock, to the next, where we enter a vestibule, or long narrow apartment, where are tables, a stove surrounded by irons required in pressing, and a flock of girls and women busily engaged in that employment. Here, also, are piles of finished garments, cloaks, sacques, etc. ready for the early trade; beyond they are stamping the braiding patterns with which they are to be ornamented. Passing through, we enter the finest work-room we have ever yet seen; and in our vocation and desire to see the employment of working women, we have visited some of the largest in New York. This is neither "under ground" nor in " an attic," but a saloon, spacious and neat enough for a court ball, occupying the entire space covered by the various departments below, and lighted by windows the same size, with no check to perfect ventilation. Here are ranged worktables, seating from two hundred and fifty to five hundred girls, as the work demands. Our visit was paid in the "dull season," yet the two hundred and fifty grouped over their work under the superintendence of a careful matron, was no insignificant sight.

Another staircase still-the fifth we have ascended—and a busier, more picturesque scene still, presents itself. In the long room or vestibule are piled bales of black rope, the curled hair, which is to be used in the manufacture of

mattresses, like those finished piles; here are women and girls busy in unravelling it; there are great waves and heaps of the picked hair darkening the room-a sight more picturesque than alluring; so we hasten to the light, cheerful saloon beyond, full of work-tables, full of busy groups, of great wicker crates moved on wheels, and piled with orders for house or steamship furnishing-from blankets to kitchen towels. Here the hum of sewing machines where they are hemmed; they are marked yonder; they are reconsigned to a wicker crate again, ready for delivery and use. One may safely say hundreds of dozens of sheets, pillow-cases, towels and napkins, dozens of blankets, counterpanes, etc., pass through these busy hands in a day. There are the costly curtains of the house this order is being executed for; here the carpets, from the Brussels ticketed "Mr. Smith, Fifth Avenue, front basement," to the plain ingrain, "Smith, fiftli story, rear hall bedroom;" it is the cook's, probably and a very good carpet she is to have!

We are certainly lifted "above the world" for once in our mortal life; face to face and on a level with the delicate carving of Grace Church upper spire. Mark the belfries and spires around; the quaint chimney tops; the flat, pointed, square-peaked, gable-roofed houses below; the thread-like openings among them, which are streets and avenues; the jostling crowd of houses stretching out for miles beyond the limit of the eye; the hum of eager life from the far off noisy street; then look back to the busy throng of workers around you; think of the reservoirs of material below; the great warehouse that pours its tide of fabrics and manufactures into this broad outlet; here are the procurers, the producers; there all around you lie the homes of the consumers of this vast centre of industry; even out to the glittering thread of silver that marks the ocean, bearing the floating transient houses "Stewart's" has furnished!

We moralize; it is a sign of advancing age, and one is not ready to confess that there is a point, or a moral in a morning spent amid the trifiles that go to make up the sum of household necessities and embellishments; but we thought, as we came back leisurely through the scenes we have attempted to describe, how harmonious was their arrangement, and how those err · who break the harmony of social life by vain and ambitious longings for elegancies beyond their stations, and crowd into "a department" where they find only heart-burnings and mali

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cious sarcasms for their straining after dress and equipage.

Let us be content, my sisters, with our neat muslins and our simple merinoes, and admire Mrs. Smith and Mrs. Jones in their moirés and cashmeres. Let us repress the bitter slander of "extravagance" and "worldliness" when we speak of them. It is not extravagance for them, but proper expenditure of ample means; and if it could but be realized, you have had far more pleasure and enjoyment in the serviceable black silk, so neat, so becoming, that hangs now in your wardrobe, than they have realized from the costly brocade, or the dainty lace, that they purchased the morning you so envied them. “Each in their own sphere, and happiness to each.”

A SUNSET VISION.

BY JULIA.

ONE time, in the autumn sober,

When the leaves lay crisped and sere,
And the evening light fell faintly
On the hill-tops far and near,

I walked with a full orbed maiden
In the dim and shadowy wood,
Where the oak and maple closely
In silent grandeur stood.

And her voice was sweet and silver,
While her laughter, free and wild,
Gushed forth from her soul like music
From the lips of a sinless child.

At length her feet grew weary,
As the shadows came and died

Across the meadows slowly,
And up the dark hill-side.

And we sank on a bed of mosses,
While I vainly tried to trace
The holy thoughts uprising
From her white, unshadowed face.
Afar in the purple distance,

From the mountain's slow descent,
Above the lake's still bosom,

The light clouds came and went. The last gleam faintly trembled

On the verge of space-and then A vast unfathomed ocean

Lay where the sun had been.
No breeze fell on its stillness,
While its tideless billows grew
Up, up to the far Infinite,

And mingled with the blue.
Then the clouds like sunset islands,
Crept slowly back again,
And softly sank to slumber

Just where the light had lain.
And the solemn silence deepened
With a power that might be felt,
Till, before its mighty presence
My soul in worship knelt.

Then her laughing eyes grew dreamy,
Like the fall of summer rain,
And her parted lips devoutly
Essayed to speak in vain.

And her small hands slowly, gently,
Clasped softly round my arm,
And I felt their thrilling presence
Steal o'er me like a charm.
And when the last gleam faded,

My heart in transport said,
That it fell a golden glory

Around her radiant head.

And now the dream is over,
I feel a quickening thrill,
When the vision of that evening
Comes o'er me calm and still.
For when my eye is clearest,
My heart is full of tears,
And a vague, uncertain whisper
Floats down the tide of years.

And I think of evenings coming
When I shall list in vain,
The fall of one light footstep

Within my room again.

The stars will smile on sweetly
From their shores of belted blue,
But their light will bring no longer
The eyes I once looked through.
And when with throbbing temples
And quickened pulse I stand,

I shall miss the cooling presence
Of one little loving hand.

My life is like those islands,
My love that purple sea,
Which like the clouds returning,
Flows backward silently.

Yet I know that misty ocean

Leads toward a golden shore, Where her laugh shall ring forever, And my tears shall fall no more.

COURTESY AT HOME.-Almost any one can be courteous in a neighbor's house. If anything goes wrong, or is out of time, or is disagreeable there, it is made the best of, not the worst; even efforts are made to excuse it, and to show it is not felt; it is attributed to accident, not to design; and this is not only easy but natural in the house of a friend. I will not, therefore, believe that what is so natural in the house of another, is impossible at home, but maintain, without fear, that all the courtesies of social life may be upheld in domestic society. A husband as willing to be pleased at home as he is anxious to be pleased in a neighbor's house, and a wife as intent on making things comfortable every day, to her family, as on set days to her guests, could not fail to make home happy.

NESTLED among the hills of New England, yet in these days of locomotion not far distant from the great metropolis, is the little town of Oakfield. To a stranger entering the village, the only conspicuous objects are the church and meeting-house, as still designated, in spite of the remonstrances of the younger portion of the community, who consider the latter appellation, however honored in former times, altogether too primitive for these days. The edifices stand on the brow of a hill, facing each other and the church, with its lofty spire, its glistening coat of white, and strikingly green blinds, looks down most benignantly upon its inferior neighbor, whose steeple, surmounted by a huge gilded cock, bearing upon its sides the impress of British bullets, was the wonder and admiration of my childish eyes. As a proof that the benevolence of the church was not confined to appearances, it has repeatedly relieved its less prosperous rival of pecuniary difficulties, events which have caused the oldest inhabitants to affirm they distinctly remembered when the balance of power was reversed, and the cock crowed most lustily over the feeble demonstrations of the infant church, which, but for an unseen Power, had been silenced forever. But those days were gone by, and the good-natured people wisely and generously determined to forget past grievances.

A little south of the church formerly stood the mansion of Miss Celia Croft, sole survivor of the family of old Doctor Croft, as she invariably announced herself. The old Doctor, after a pilgrimage of ninety-nine years, whose available portion was wholly absorbed in hoarding up filthy lucre, reluctantly "shuffled off this mortal coil," leaving an ample fortune to his "sole survivor," with a strict injunction she should not allow herself to be defrauded of it by her neighbors-advice, however, little needed, for the mantle of avarice, which for three successive generations had "waxed not old," fell upon shoulders early trained to wear it. Together with her parent's avaricious disposition, she had also inherited an inveterate dislike to children; and yet, by a strange contrariety, she had picked up, none knew where, a poor orphan girl, to relieve her solitude and minister to her necessities; but upon whom she wreaked all her ill-humor.

In close proximity to Miss Croft lived the

family of Mr. Jones, not less noted for their benevolence than was their neighbor for its opposite quality; farther down the street, and just within sight of Miss Croft's front windows, stood the mansion of Esquire Wentworth, which, having been destitute of a, mistress for more than a year, had become an object of special interest to the eyes of Miss Celia; and several times a day would she put on her spectacles, and trip from the back sitting-room to her parlor window, as if to assure her vision that there was in reality an anchorage ground for her golden hopes.

"Come in, Roxy!" said Miss Celia, in her shrillest tone, one frosty morning, as she tapped on the window-pane, and at the same time beckoning with her finger to the little shivering figure, who stood with broom in hand on the door-steps. "Hav'n't I told you repeatedly when I send you to sweep off my steps, never to speak to any one passing? Answer me, you little vixen !" exclaimed her mistress, seizing her roughly by the shoulder.

"Oh, Miss Croft !" said the frightened child, "I did not mean to do it; but Squire Wentworth called me to the gate, and asked if you were at home; he told me to say he would call in this afternoon or evening, for he wished to see you on special business."

"Oh! he wishes to see me on business, does he?" Her hand suddenly relaxing its gripe, and an evident smile of satisfaction playing over he features. "Very well, Roxy! as Squire Wentworth called you, I shall not punish you this time; but mind you don't disobey me again. Now go to your work; wash the dishes, scour the knives bright as you can, and then come and I'll tell you what next to do. I don't believe in a girl's being idle! Satan always finds mischief for idle hands." So with this invariable finale to all her instructions, Roxy retreated, leaving Miss Celia to herself and her reflections.

"So he wishes to see me on business, does he?" soliloquized our heroine. "I should like to know for a certainty upon what business : but then it does not require much shrewdness to conjecture. Poor man! how I pity him! How gladly would I pour consolation into his wounded heart! How joyfully would I share his griefs and cheer his solitude! And then, those harum scarum girls of his are sadly in

need of a mother's oversight! Now, who is there better adapted to this responsible situation than the daughter of old Doctor Croft? Surely no one! But if ever I am mistress of that house, won't I teach those girls better manners! I'll very soon let them know that Mrs. Celia Wentworth is not a woman to be despised or ridiculed!"

So absorbed was Miss Celia in her meditations, that she became no less oblivious to the flight of time, than to her own actual condition. Roxy, having completed her task, had twice knocked at her door for orders; but receiving no answer, had crept cautiously back to the kitchen. Another hour passed; and still was she deafly absorbed in arranging and remodelling the habitation of which she, in imagination, had been installed mistress for more than six months. And now those girls, to whom she had so long owed a grudge, were to be disciplined; and she was actually standing erect on the floor, haranguing Miss Alice, the most guilty of the lawless trio, when the clock struck loud and clear the hour of twelve. At which Roxy, with dilated eyes, rushed in, imagining from the unusual respite to her labors, that something fearful had befallen her mistress. But no! there she stood safe and sound, but with compressed lips and upraised hand, which dealt a succession of violent blows upon the luckless head that moment presenting itself.

"You saucy little brat! Havin't I told you repeatedly never to enter this room without knocking? I'll teach you to know your place!"

"Oh, please don't, ma'am. I did knock at the door twice; but you didn't answer, and I thought you were busy, or perhaps asleep, and so-"

Asleep! you little wretch! You know I never sleep in the daytime. Since you came here I've had something else to do. So don't repeat that lie.”

Oh, Miss Croft!" said the terrified child, "it was so still in here I thought something had happened. I thought-I thought perhaps you had a fit."

"A fit!" fairly shrieked Miss Croft. "Who ever said I had a fit?"

"Why, I heard Miss Alice say you had one once, and and-"

"Go on child, go on-tell me every word she said; if you don't you 'll be sorry.'

"Well, she said, ma'am, she was in hopes 'twould have made you better; but she didn't see that it had."

“There, take that for your impudence and

for listening to her"—giving her a severe blow "and never let me hear you repeating her falsehoods again. Now be off; split up some kindlings, for I am going to have a fire put in the front room this afternoon-I do wish I knew exactly when the Squire would come. But if I don't have the fire kindled early, he 'll be sure to come when I'm unprepared for him; and if I have it lighted this afternoon, he won't be likely to come till evening, and then all that wood will be consumed for nothing. With all my economy I'find it impossible to get along without great waste. Roxy," said she, looking up, what on earth are you standing there for? I'm not talking to you-hurry and get your kindlings, and I'll run into Mr. Jones's yard and borrow an armful of hard wood from his pile, and that will last for the evening. Come, be off with yourself.

Roxy disappeared on her errand.

Forthwith the fire was lighted; but not without many precautions against its burning too briskly. Miss Croft arrayed herself in her second best dress of snuff-colored merino, which, having with commendable prudence been turned inside out, upside down, and backside in front, was pronounced by its owner fully equal to a new one. A black lace cap of ancient device, lavishly trimmed with pink ribbon, dyed with balsam leaves from the garden, contributed, in her opinion, not a little to the stylishness of her appearance. Her easychair and basket of patchwork brought in from the adjoining room, she seated herself most complacently to await the coming of her visitor As she had sorrowfully predicted, it was not until dusk she heard tho well-known sound of the gate latch. Wanting no further proof her guest was at hand, she rushed precipitately into the kitchen, and placed a candle and match within reach of Roxy, giving her strict orders to bring in the light precisely at the hour of six. In a flutter of delight she hastened back to the door, and opening it, exclaimed:

"Ah, Squire Wentworth! How delighted I am to see you! Walk in, walk in, sir! You find me enjoying the twilight all by myself."

The Squire bowing his thanks, modestly entered, and seated himself, utterly unconscious of the imagined import of his visit.

"Do take this arm-chair, and be seated nearer the fire. I fear my room is not as warm as you are accustomed to; but my poor lamented father used to consider hot rooms very unhealthy. Roxy! Roxy!" said she, going to the door, "bring in another stick of wood, and see if you can't make this fire burn more briskly.