Among other purchases which Elsie had made on the day of Francis’ arrival, were the materials for a bonnet for Mrs. Phillips, which she had chosen, and which, as she was busily engaged in making up, so much excited Harriett’s admiration, that she was seized with a desire to have one like it immediately, only that hers must be of a different colour, and a little modified in shape, to suit her different complexion and contour of face.  On the following morning, as she was going out shopping herself, she asked Elsie to accompany her, to give her the benefit of her taste on this as well as some other purchases.  Mr. Brandon was asked if he was not going down Regent Street?  He said he was, and he would be very happy to go with Miss Phillips—­as he had nothing particular to do, and Phillips was out, and Jane had the children at their lessons, and he did not find it amusing to be left tete-A-tete with Mrs. Phillips.

Miss Harriett was quite unaware of her own weakness, or she never would have asked a lover to go with her in a draper’s shop.  Elsie had seen something of Mrs. Phillips’s unreasonableness and unscrupulousness, but this was the first time she had been with her sister-in-law, and she did not expect from a young lady of such professed good principles, and good-nature, such an utter abnegation of these excellent qualities in dealing with tradespeople.  She blushed for her companion, who did not blush for herself.  She herself chose quickly, with the certain judgment of a fine taste and a practised eye; but what she fixed on as most suitable for Miss Phillips’s complexion and style, was not always of a suitable price.  When driven from the expensive to something cheaper, then it was shabby and not fit to wear.  Miss Phillips had come out determined to get as good things as possible, and to pay as small a price as possible for them; she would not be put off with an inferior article, and yet she was not willing to give the value of a superior.  Elsie, who had herself waited on ladies of this character, and felt her body ache all over from the fatigue of being civil to them, was sorry for the shopmen, who fetched out box after box, and displayed article after article, without anything being exactly the thing which their customer wanted; while Walter Brandon stood beside the two ladies, finding it harder than ever to feel sentimental about Harriett Phillips.

Leigh Hunt recommends men to choose their wives in drapers’ shops; for if a woman is conscientious, reasonable, and expeditious there, he thinks a man may be sure she will be fit for all the duties of life.  But perhaps his test is too severe for general use, for many of the best of wives and mothers, the kindest of friends, and the most pious of Christians, are very far from appearing amiable under circumstances of such great temptation.  The obsequious manners of British shopmen, who never show any spirit or any resentment, tend to lull conscience, while the strife