not look like a dangerous rival,
and he was not molested.

A discreditable and disordered head now thrust itself out of the
mysterious closet, opened its mouth, and the vicious voice said:
"I will see you now, sir." The sighing swain, with a fluttering
heart and unsteady steps, summoned his courage and entered the
place, to him as mysterious as was Bluebeard's golden-keyed
closet to his ninth wife. The first glance at Madame Widger at
once scattered again all his dreams of love and of happiness
with that potent and fearful female.

He encountered a cadaverous bony-looking woman, very tall, very
old, though with hair still black; with grey eyes, and false
gleaming teeth. She was attired in calico; quality, ten cents a
yard; appearance, dirty. Hardly was the door closed, when the
vicious voice spitefully remarked, "Sit down, sir;" and a skinny
finger pointed to a cane-bottomed chair. While seating himself
and taking off his gloves, he took an observation.

The apartment was not large; in an unfurnished state, a
moderately-hooped belle might have stood in it without serious
damage to her outskirts, but there would be little extra room for
any enterprising adventurer to circumnavigate her. In one corner
was a small pine light-stand, on which was a sceptical looking
Bible, with a very black brass key tied in it; a volume of Cowper
bound in full calf; a little lamp with a single lighted wick, and
a pile of the Madame's business hand-bills.

She at once showed her experience of human nature and her distrust
of her present visitor by her practical and matter-of-fact conduct.

She sat uncomfortably down on the very edge of an angular chair,
folded her hands, shut herself half up like a jack-knife, and the
vicious voice mentioned this fearful fact: "My terms are a dollar
for gentlemen;" and the grey eyes stonily stared until the dollar
aforesaid was produced.

The voice then prepared for business by sundry "Ahems!" and when
fairly in working order it proceeded: "Give me your hand--your
_left_ hand."

The Widger took the extended palm in her shrivelled fingers and
made four rapid dabs in the middle of it with the forefinger of
her other hand, as if she were scornfully pointing out defects in
its workmanship; then she opened the drawer of the little stand
with a spiteful jerk, and withdrew thence something which she put
to her sinister optic, and began rapidly screwing it round with
both hands, as if she had got water on