Shopping.

Abundant opportunity is afforded those who have occasion to visit emporiums of art and fashion on shopping designs intent.  The flashing establishments under the large hotels, as well as several others in the village, cater entirely to the fashionable visitor.  Everything desirable in the way of laces, feathers, diamonds and ornaments, and elegant dress goods are obtainable.  It is the custom of many of the fashionable merchants and modistes of New York to open here during the summer, branch establishments for the sale of their specialities.  There are numerous resident stores also, which would not disgrace New York or Boston; among these the house of H. Van Deusen, on Broadway and Phila street, near the Post-Office, takes the lead.  During the warm season, the Saratoga Broadway glitters with the brilliant display in shop windows, and the gorgeous exhibition of goods upon the sidewalks.

Evening.

It is only in the evening that Saratoga is in full bloom.  When—­

“——­ night throughout the gelid air, Veils with her sable wings the solar glare; When modest Cynthia clad in silver light Expands her beauty on the brow of night, Sheds her soft beams upon the mountain side, Peeps through the wood and quivers on the tide,”

then faces light up with the gas lamps.  The parlors begin to fill with elegantly attired ladies, the piazzas are thronged with chatty and sociable gentlemen, and the streets are crowded, far more than they are in the daytime, by pleasure strollers of either sex in elegant array.  The ball-room becomes radiant with costly chandeliers whose effulgence is reflected by diamonds of the first water.

One dark evening, at the height of last season, in the midst of the preparations for a brilliant ball, the gas which supplies the whole village became suddenly exhausted.  Candles were the only resource, and there was by some mischance a limited supply of these.  Bottles were improvised for candlesticks, and stationed in the corners and on the pianos of the massive parlors, rendering the scene grotesque and ludicrous in the extreme, while the closer nestling of lovers and the solemn stillness reigning on every hand gave sublimity to the picture.  The poet Saxe happened to be among the guests at Congress Hall, and borrowed a candle from a pretty young lady.  The next morning she found under her door the following beautiful lines: 

    “You gave me a candle; I give you my thanks,
      And add, as a compliment justly your due,
    There is not a girl in these feminine ranks
      Who could, if she would, hold a candle to you.”

Verily “darkness brings the stars to view.”  On this occasion there was no little “sparking,” and though the flames of the gas lamps gave no light, love’s flame burned brighter than ever.

Saratoga in Winter.

Saratoga is not a “Country where the leaves never fall, and the eternal day is summer-time.”  As the gorgeous autumnal sunsets of October crown the golden-capped, or no longer verdant forests, the summer beauties prepare to return to their winter homes.  The falling leaves in this vicinity are wondrously beautiful, and the cool sunsets will richly reward those who tarry to behold them; but “the season” is over, and the little town becomes almost a deserted village.