2:

"If I marry this person, will the marriage be a happy one?" The
same answer was given, in the same manner. Being now satisfied as
to his own matrimonial prospects, he concluded to ascertain those
of his children, and question No. 3 was asked, as follows:

"Shall I live to see my children happily married?"

There was a long delay, which was undoubtedly occasioned by the
difficulty of properly providing for those refractory girls, but
at last there came a reluctant "Yes."

Having now got all that his dollar entitled him to, the customer
prepared to depart. The Madame informed him that in a few days
she would have her "_Magic Mirror_" from Paris, with which she
could do new wonders, and she hoped that he would soon call
again, adding, "If I was ten year younger I would not admit
gentlemen, but now I am old and I must."

CHAPTER XIV.

Describes an interview with the "Cullud" Seer, Mr. Grommer, of
No. 34 North Second Street, Williamsburgh, and what that
respectable Whitewasher and Prophet told his Visitor.

CHAPTER XIV.

A BLACK PROPHET, MR. GROMMER, No. 34 NORTH SECOND STREET,
WILLIAMSBURGH.

Besides those who advertise in the daily journals, there are many
other witches in and about the city who do not deign so to inform
the world of their miraculous powers. Either they have not full
faith in their own supernatural gifts, or they distrust the
policy of advertising; at any rate they are only known to the
inquiring stranger by accidental rumors, and mysterious
side-whisperings emanating from those credulous ones who have had
ocular proof of the miracle-working facility of these veiled
prophets.

In certain of the older States of the Union, there cannot
probably be found any country village that does not boast its old
crones of fortune-telling celebrity--women who are not named by
the awe-struck youngsters of the town, but with low breath and a
startled sort of look thrown backward over the shoulder every
minute as if in half-fear that the evil eye is even there upon
them. And in almost every neighborhood in any part of the
country, there will be one or more old women who delight in
mystifying the young folks by telling fortunes in tea-cups, by
means of the ominous settling of the "grounds;"--or who,
sometimes, even "run the cards," or aspire to read the fates by
the portentous turning of the Bible and key. All these conjurations
are given without money and without price in the rural district