overhauling the future and taking a look at the hereafter of some
anxious inquirer, who pays her as much for the reliable
information she imparts in three minutes, as she would charge him
for making three shirts. The inquirer gave his customary modest
ring at the door, and was admitted with as little question as if
he had been the taxes, the Croton water, or the gas. Up the two
flights of stairs walked the gentleman in the pursuit of
witchcraft, gave a bashful knock at the door, at the side of
which was painted, on a small bit of pasteboard, "Madame
Carzo"--repented of his temerity before the echo of the knock had
died away, but was admitted into the room before his repentance
had time to develop itself into running away.

A shabby-looking girl, with her hair in as much confusion as if
the city had contracted to keep it straight, with one ear-ring in
her ear, and the other on the table, with her shoes down at the
heel, her dress unhooked behind, and her breast-pin wrong side
up, was the model young woman who had answered the knock. She had
evidently been engaged in an animated single combat with another
young woman, of about the same quality and age, who was seated on
a low stool in the corner, for she instantly renewed hostilities
by stabbing her antagonist in the arm with a needle, tapping her
on the head with a thimble, and kicking her pin-cushion under the
table, so she could not recover it without crawling on her hands
and knees.

On a small sofa or lounge at the side of the room was a quantity
of what ladies call "work," thrown down in a great hurry, with
the needle yet sticking in it, and the scissors, and the beeswax,
and the measuring tape, and the bodkin half-concealed inside, as
if the knock at the door had startled the needle-woman, and she
had flown to parts unknown. It was undoubtedly Madame Carzo
herself who had so unceremoniously deserted her colors and her
weapons, and Johannes looked at the needle with veneration,
viewed the thimble with respect, and regarded the beeswax and the
bodkin with concentrated awe.

A small cooking-stove was in the side of the room, and
immediately over it was a picture of St. Andrew in such a
position that he could smell all the dinners; a number of other
pictures of Roman Catholic subjects were neatly framed and
hanging against the wall. St. Somebody taking his ease on an
X-shaped cross, St. Somebody Else comfortably cooking on a
gridiron, and St. Somebody, different