Earnings per share came to 24 cents and revenues for the thirdquarter totaled $722.8 million, accomplishments that the companyachieved despite what CEO Ed Mueller called "a difficult retailenvironment and a challenging performance in the Williams-Sonomabrand," where same-store sales were down 4.2% for the quarter on ayear-to-year basis.

Williams-Sonoma is investing substantially in what it calls"emerging brands," including its West Elm stores and its newestcatalog, Williams-Sonoma Home. It opened its first West Elmprototype stores during the quarter, launched the new catalog andgeared up for the scheduled fourth quarter expansion of its HoldEverything brand, which is expected to launch its first e-commercewebsite and three new prototype stores in the quarter.

With a number of retail concepts in operation and in theplanning stages, the company's financial performance during thequarter featured improvement in some brands and flat or flaggingsales in others. It attributed much of its year-over-year salesincrease to the Pottery Barn and Pottery Barn Kids brands, but saidthose results were partially offset by lower sales in the HoldEverything brand, where it reduced the number of stores to sevenfrom 12.