t. This room was
evidently the kitchen, and was fitted up with the customary iron
and brazen apparatus.

A feeble child, just old enough to run alone, had constructed a
child's paradise in the lee of the cooking-stove, and was seated
on a dinner-pot, with one foot in a saucepan; it had been playing
on the wash-boiler like a drum, but was now engaged in decorating
some loaves of unbaked bread with bits of charcoal and splinters
from the broom.

The fighting servant retreated to the far end of the apartment,
where she began to wash dishes with vindictive earnestness,
stopping at short intervals to wave her dish-cloth savagely as a
challenge to instant single combat. There was nothing visible
that savored of astrology or magic, unless some tin candlesticks
with battered rims could be cabalistically construed.

Madame Prewster, the renowned, sat majestically in a Windsor
rocking-chair, extra size, with a large pillow comfortably tucked
in behind her illustrious and rheumatic back. Her prophetic feet
rested on a wooden stool; her oracular neck was bound with a
bright-colored shawl; her necromantic locomotive apparatus was
incased in a great number of predictive petticoats, and her
whole aspect was portentous. She is a woman who may be of any age
from 45 to 120, for her face is so oily that wrinkles won't stay
in it; they slip out and leave no trace. She is an unctuous
woman, with plenty of material in her--enough, in fact, for two or
three. She is adipose to a degree that makes her circumference
problematical, and her weight a mere matter of conjecture.
Moreover, one instantly feels that she is thoroughly water-proof,
and is certain that if she could be induced to shed tears, she
would weep lard oil.

Grim, grizzled, and stony-eyed, is this juicy old Sibyl; and she
glared fearfully on the hero with her fishy optics, until he
wished he hadn't done anything.

She was evidently just out of bed, although it was long past
noon, and when she yawned, which she did seven times a minute on
a low average, the effect was gloomy and cavernous, and the timid
delegate in search of the mysterious trembled in his boots.

At last, he with uncovered head and timid demeanor presented his
card entitling him to twelve shillings' worth of witchcraft, and
made an humble request to have it honored. He had previously,
while pretending to warm himself at the stove, been occupied in
making horrible grimaces at the baby, and then sketching it