h pink strings nicely
bordered in gimp, and a rich Honiton cape, jauntily thrown over her
shoulders, and secured under the chin with a great cluster of blazing
diamonds, and rows of unpolished pearls at her wrists, which are
immersed in crimped ruffles, she doddles up and down the hall in a state
of general excitement. A corpulent colored man, dressed in the garb of a
beadle,--a large staff in his right hand, a cocked hat on his head, and
broad white stripes down his flowing coat, stands midway between the
parlor doors. He is fussy enough, and stupid enough, for a Paddington
beadle. Now Madame Flamingo looks scornfully at him, scolds him, pushes
him aside; he is only a slave she purchased for the purpose; she
commands that he gracefully touch his hat (she snatches it from his
head, and having elevated it over her own, performs the delicate motion
she would have him imitate) to every visitor. The least neglect of duty
will incur (she tells him in language he cannot mistake) the penalty of
thirty-nine well laid on in the morning. In another minute her fat,
chubby-face glows with smiles, her whole soul seems lighted up with
childlike enthusiasm; she has a warm welcome for each new comer, retorts
saliently upon her old friends, and says--"you know how welcome you all
are!" Then she curtsies with such becoming grace. "The house, you know,
gentlemen, is a commonwealth to-night." Ah! she recognizes the tall,
comely figure of Mr. Soloman, the accommodation man. He did not spring
from among the bevy of coat-takers, and hood-retainers, at the extreme
end of the great hall, nor from among the heap of promiscuous garments
piled in one corner; and yet he is here, looking as if some magic
process had brought him from a mysterious labyrinth. "Couldn't get along
without me, you see. It's an ambition with me to befriend everybody. If
I can do a bit of a good turn for a friend, so much the better!" And he
grasps the old hostess by the hand with a self-satisfaction he rather
improves by tapping her encouragingly on the shoulder. "You'll make a
right good thing of this!--a clear thousand, eh?"

"The fates have so ordained it," smiles naively the old woman.

"Of course the fates could not ordain otherwise--"

"As to that, Mr. Soloman, I sometimes think the gods are with me, and
then again I think they are against me. The witches--they have done my
fortune a dozen times or more--always predict evil (I consult them
whenever a sad fit comes