one o'clock
Among her letters that morning , Gabrielle found one from Hygeia , and regretted that she must place it with her packages as soon as she glanced at the name , for there was no time to read it then ; perhaps in a car she would find the time . Letters written at leisure in the country and read in the crowded city cars lose their native sweetness . Such as I have ever received from there must be opened tenderly and read slowly far from the throng . By one o'clock the mills of Justice ceased to claim the attention of Gabrielle . Two hours were spent in the stores , every minute consumed in the closest study of fabrics , miles of floor-walking and volumes of questioning -- all composing the art and science of shopping , the one sphere in which woman can carry the weight of a fur cloak and do a hundred-yard dash or a mile run to the most distant department , while her man companion takes his coat off and worms his way twenty feet to the necktie counter , which is always found opposite the main entrance . Ten feet farther in , it would fail . Gabrielle shopped with system , to save time , and then used the time she saved to shop some more .