a few
very distinguished foreigners. Madame Flamingo opens her forts, at the
same time, with a grand supper, which she styles a very select
entertainment, and to which she invites none but "those of the highest
standing in society." If you would like to see what sort of a supper she
sets to inaugurate the fashionable season, take our arm for a few
minutes.

Having just arrived from New York, where she has been luxuriating and
selecting her wares for the coming season, (New York is the fountain
ejecting its vice over this Union,) Madame looks hale, hearty, and
exceedingly cheerful. Nor has she spared any expense to make herself up
with becoming youthfulness--as the common people have it. She has got
her a lace cap of the latest fashion, with great broad striped blue and
red strings; and her dress is of orange-colored brocade, trimmed with
tulle, and looped with white blossoms. Down the stomacher it is set with
jewels. Her figure seems more embonpoint than when we last saw her; and
as she leans on the arm of old Judge Sleepyhorn, forms a striking
contrast to the slender figure of that singular specimen of judicial
infirmity. Two great doors are opened, and Madame leads the way into
what she calls her upper and private parlor, a hall of some fifty feet
by thirty, in the centre of which a sumptuously decorated table is set
out. Indeed there is a chasteness and richness about the furniture and
works of art that decorate this apartment, singularly at variance with
the bright-colored furniture of the room we have described in a former
chapter. "Ladies and gentlemen!" ejaculates the old hostess, "imagine
this a palace, in which you are all welcome. As the legal gentry say
(she casts a glance at the old Judge), when you have satisfactorily
imagined that, imagine me a princess, and address me--"

"High ho!" interrupts Mr. Soloman.

"I confess," continues the old woman, her little, light-brown curls
dangling across her brow, and her face crimsoning, "I would like to be a
princess."

"You can," rejoins the former speaker, his fingers wandering to his
chin.

"Well! I have my beadle--beadles, I take, are inseparable from royal
blood--and my servants in liveries. After all (she tosses her head) what
can there be in beadles and liveries? Why! the commonest and vulgarest
people of New York have taken to liveries. If you chance to take an
elegant drive up the 'Fifth Avenue,' and meet a dashing equipage--say
with horses terribly ca