ly drawings made by young children, who had the usual
childish notions of proportion and perspective; and on one side
of the wall, near the head of the bed, a bit of pasteboard
persisted in this startling announcement--

+----------------+
| tE_R_ms C_a_sH |
+----------------+

A narrow strip of rag carpet was on the floor; a small stand and
a chair completed the furnishing of the room, and a single smoky
pewter lamp exhausted itself in a dismal combat with the gloom,
which constantly got the better of it.

When the Cash Inquirer stumbled, and took an involuntary leap
into the middle of the bed, an awful voice came out of the
dreariness, saying, "There is a chair right there behind you."
This information proved to be correct, and the discomfited
delegate subsided into it, and gazed stolidly at the Madame. If
Madame Harris were worth as much by the pound as beef, her
market-price would be about twenty-five dollars. She was attired
in a loose morning-gown, of an exceedingly flashy pattern, open
before, disclosing a skirt meant to be white, but whose
cleanliness was merely traditional. Of her countenance her
visitor cannot speak, for it was carefully hidden from his
inquiring gaze, and its unknown beauties are left to the
imagination of the reader. Perched mysteriously on the back of
her head, where it was retained by some feminine hocus-pocus,
which has ever been a sealed mystery to _man_kind, was a little
black bonnet, marvellous in pattern and design; from this
depended a long black veil, covering her countenance, and
disguising her as effectually as if she had washed her face and
put on a clean dress.

She proceeded at once to business, and opened conversation with
this appropriate remark: "My terms is fifty cents for gentlemen,
and the pay is always in advance."

Here followed a disbursement on the part of the anxious seeker
after knowledge, and an approving chuckle was heard under the
veil.

Taking up a pack of cards so overlaid with dirt that it was a
work of time and study to tell a queen from a nine spot, or
distinguish the knaves from the aces, she presented them with the
imperative remark: "Cut them once."

Then ensued the following wonderful predictions uttered by a
dubious and uncertain voice under the veil--which voice seemed one
minute to come from the mouth, then it issued from the throat,
then it sprawled out of the stomach, then it was heard from the
back of the head under the bo