en Houston and Stanton."

Although Orchard Street is by no means so objectionable a
thoroughfare as human ingenuity might make it, still, in spite of
its pleasant-sounding name, it is not altogether a vernal
paradise. If there ever was any fitness in the name it must have
been many years ago, and the ancient orchard bears now no fruit,
but low brick houses of assorted sizes and colors, seedy, and,
in appearance, semi-respectable. Occasionally a blacksmith's
shop, a paint room, or a livery stable, lower or meaner and more
contracted than their neighbors, look as if they never got ripe,
but had shrivelled and dropped off before their time.

The street is in a state of perennial bloom with half-built
dwellings like gaudy scarlet blossoms, which are ripened into
tenements by the fostering care of masons and carpenters with the
most industrious forcing; and buds of buildings are scattered in
every direction, in the shape of mortar-beds and piles of brick
and lumber, waiting the due time for their architectural
sprouting.

The house of Madame Clifton is of moderate growth, being but two
stories high; it has a red brick front and green window-blinds,
and is so ingeniously grafted to its nearest neighbor that some
little care is necessary to determine which is the parent stock.
It presents a fair outside, is but little damaged by age or
weather, and is seemingly in a state of good repair.

A neat-looking colored girl answered the bell, and, showing our
reporter into the parlor, asked his business, and if he "knew
Madame Clifton's terms?"

Now when it is understood that fortune-telling is by no means the
only, or the most lucrative part of Madame Clifton's business, it
will be perceived that this inquiry had a peculiar significance.
Having the fear of libel suits before his eyes, the Individual
cannot state in precise and plain terms the exact nature of the
business which the colored girl evidently thought had brought him
there; he will content himself with delicately insinuating, that
if his errand had been of the nature insinuated by that female
delegate from Africa, there would have been a "lady in the case."

Fortunately the Cash Customer had erred not thus, but he made
known to the colored lady his simple business.

Learning that he only wanted to have his fortune told by the
Madame, and had no occasion to test her skill in the more
expensive departments of her profession, the girl appeared to be
satisfied of the