We love the silks of sunny hue that glow within the darkened premises of the spruce dry-goods men ; we are pleasantly dazzled by the burnished silver and the chased gold , the rings of wedlock and the costly love-ornaments , glistening at the window of the jeweller ; but Annie , more than I , seeks for a glimpse of her passing figure in the dusty looking-glasses at the hardware-stores . All that is bright and gay attracts us both . Here is a shop to which the recollections of my boyhood as well as present partialities give a peculiar magic . How delightful to let the fancy revel on the dainties of a confectioner -- those pies with such white and flaky paste , their contents being a mystery , whether rich mince with whole plums intermixed , or piquant apple delicately rose-flavored ; those cakes , heart-shaped or round , piled in a lofty pyramid ; those sweet little circlets sweetly named kisses ; those dark majestic masses fit to be bridal-loaves at the wedding of an heiress , mountains in size , their summits deeply snow-covered with sugar ! Then the mighty treasures of sugarplums , white and crimson and yellow , in large glass vases , and candy of all varieties , and those little cockles -- or whatever they are called -- much prized by children for their sweetness , and more for the mottoes which they enclose , by love-sick maids and bachelors ! Oh , my mouth waters , little Annie , and so doth yours , but we will not be tempted except to an imaginary feast ; so let us hasten onward devouring the vision of a plum-cake . Here are pleasures , as some people would say , of a more exalted kind , in the window of a bookseller . Is Annie a literary lady ? Yes ; she is deeply read in Peter Parley 's tomes and has an increasing love for fairy-tales , though seldom met with nowadays , and she will subscribe next year to the Juvenile Miscellany . But , truth to tell , she is apt to turn away from the printed page and keep gazing at the pretty pictures , such as the gay-colored ones which make this shop-window the continual loitering-place of children . What would Annie think if , in the book which I mean to send her on New Year 's day , she should find her sweet little self bound up in silk or morocco with gilt edges , there to remain till she become a woman grown with children of her own to read about their mother 's childhood ? That would be very queer . Little Annie is weary of pictures and pulls me onward by the hand , till suddenly we pause at the most wondrous shop in all the town . Oh , my stars ! Is this a toyshop , or is it fairy-land ? For here are gilded chariots in which the king and queen of the fairies might ride side by side , while their courtiers on these small horses should gallop in triumphal procession before and behind the royal pair . Here , too , are dishes of chinaware fit to be the dining-set of those same princely personages when they make a regal banquet in the stateliest hall of their palace -- full five feet high -- and behold their nobles feasting adown the long perspective of the table . Betwixt the king and queen should sit my little Annie , the prettiest fairy of them all . Here stands a turbaned Turk threatening us with his sabre , like an ugly heathen as he is , and next a Chinese mandarin who nods his head at Annie and myself . Here we may review a whole army of horse and foot in red-and-blue uniforms , with drums , fifes , trumpets , and all kinds of noiseless music ; they have halted on the shelf of this window after their weary march from Liliput .
But what cares XXXXX for soldiers ?
Annie chariots circlets confectioner dining-set dry-goods loitering-place love-ornaments partialities toyshop